Just Another Tuesday
by BrightestDarkness
Summary: In the year 2154, the citizens under the Council suffered a rude awakening when they were assaulted by strange foes beyond imagining, and were aided by mighty allies, who operated beyond reason. The civilizations of the galaxy called this event the most unexpected discovery of all time. The humans called it Tuesday. AU/Fusion.
1. It Was A Day Unlike Any Other

_**Just Another Tuesday**_

**Prologue:**

"3 Billion credits….3 spirits-cursed billion. Spirits, what the hell are these…people, that they can cause three billion credits to the Citadel and then pass it off as a grand victory."

"They call themselves the Avengers, sir."

"I don't give a damn what they are called! I was still in the building when the giant green monstrosity used it as a club to rearrange the face of that oversized mechanical- what's it called?"

"It's called a Sentinel, sir."

"Then that flying robot man—

"Iron Man, s-

"Shut up."

"Yes sir."

"That flying robotic jackass blew up the Presidium, trying to kill the same giant _Sentinel_, and then the bloody thing gets up again anyway!"

"Let's not forget the hammer wielder that punched a hole through the Citadel. All of it."

"….You know what I don't care anymore. Just get them off this station."

"Yes sir."

What a day

Councilor Sparatus collapsed on his chair, exhausted. Sitting amid the ruins of his office, within the wreckage of the once proud Citadel Tower, Sparatus pondered in silence. Not much of a tower now, considering its been turned horizontal by a giant green monster. It was miracle that no one was killed.

He sighs as another piece of the ceiling drops falls to the floor. He really should move, the terrain was getting rather unstable, but the thought of getting crushed to death was rather appealing considering that he still had to see to the deportation of these "Avengers".

He should see if Tevos and Valern were okay, he still needed the full Council if he wanted get to this "First Contact" event over with, get those maniacs deported, and started on Citadel repairs.

Unfortunately his plans would never come to fruition.

Before Sparatus could even finish his train of thought, the same aide he sent out to remove the Avengers, came back panting and huffing, eyes wide with terror.

"Sir….we have a problem."

Sparatus tensed up, "What is it?"

"It's best if you see yourself sir."

With that statement, the aide opened his omnitool and began playing a message.

"ATTENTION MORTALS, I AM GALACTUS, DEVOUR OF WORLDS. I HAVE COME TO FEED, I WILL HAVE MY SUSTENANCE! RUN IF YOU CAN, BUT ALL WHO TRY TO STOP ME WILL FAIL!"

Sparatus held his blank expression for a full minute before turning to his aide again.

"The Citadel isn't a planet….It knows that right?"

"It's talking about Palaven sir."

"Spirits fu-"

And thus a day unlike any other was upon them.

…

A few months after Palaven was nearly eaten, invaded by green people, and then set on fire by a purple-skinned jackass with a shiny gauntlet, the first talks between the representatives of Earth and Citadel Council were to be held.

On this momentous occasion, the Citadel Council did their best to put their best foot forward, and each Councilor was prepared to display to full capability of the Citadel races. They fully expected to impress the humans with their overall technological superiority.

Unfortunately, though means of blackmail and political maneuvering, among the Earth's representatives stood one Dr. Doom, ruler of Latvia and rival to the now sadly deceased Dr. Reed Richards. Despite this fact, Doom's century old grudge has not faded in least.

As the numerous races gathered together to watch and possibly welcome the (supposed) newcomers to the galactic scene, the shuttles bringing the representatives of Earth opened to reveal nothing in them.

Five seconds later, a flash, and an infinite number of atoms shot across the universe at light speed later, the Earth representatives materialized in front of them. Before them stood some of the horribly dressed individuals they had ever seen.

Each of them was wearing something astoundingly absurd, but they couldn't tell which of them was the worst dressed. Considering that one wore full metal armor under a robe and hood, while another was bald, clad in all leather up to his eye patch, but both were beat out by a young man wearing robes that belonged in that Galaxy of Fantasy game. It was with great disbelief that the people there that day stated the most normally dressed was a young woman wearing a service uniform, while holding a circular shield under her arm.

A moment of silence passed before the representatives strode up and entered the newly redesigned Citadel Ground Tower, left in its horizontal state by baffled keepers and confused architects.

When they entered the main doors into the council audience chamber, silence reigned supreme, broken only at certain moments in time by the imposing footsteps of humanity.

The Councilors of the Citadel stood up to address their guests, as the humans stood below them, on the platform.

"I am Counci-"

"Your technology is pathetic."

Tevos sputtered in indignation and surprise, turning to gaze upon the face of the metal man who made that statement.

"What!"

"Doom is embarrassed for you about your technological state. Doom is disgusted that you are only capable of advanced flight."

Tevos didn't know how to respond to this statement, and neither did her colleagues. This was certainly not how she expected the talks to start. Then, the scowling hairless man wearing an odd amount of leather took it upon himself to rectify the situation.

"Doom, shut up and go stand behind the group. I have no goddamn clue how you got on this committee anyway."

"Bah, Doom doesn't need to talk to creatures of inferior intellectual caliber, that duty falls fittingly to you, Fury. Doom is simply here to survey the failings of our new "acquaintances"."

Fury's scowl deepened as he glared at Doom, and Doom glared back, presumably, from under his mask.

The three Councilors looked on uneasily at the humans before them, hoping to avoid another incident at the Citadel.

Thankfully the young woman among the humans seemed to have the most sense, as she took a step between her clashing companions.

"Ahem," The Council's attention was quickly refocused to the human in the uniform. "Forgive us for the prior statements Councilors. I'm Captain Tonya Rogers, this is Colonel Nicholas Fury, our esteemed Sorcerer Supreme Dr. Conrad Verner, and uh, Dr. Victor Von Doom, ruler of Latvia."

Tevos felt herself relax slightly. At least one of them could function as a diplomat.

"Pleased to meet you Tonya, I am Councilor Tevos."

"I am Councilor Sparatus."

"And I am Councilor Valern."

And with a slight smile on her face, Tevos spoke again.

"Welcome to the Citadel."

And with that being said, the moment was complete. Or it would have been if Conrad hadn't spoken.

"Hey, do you guys have a toilet around here. Being Sorcerer Supreme doesn't exempt me from urinary action, if you know what I mean."

Tonya Rogers palm quickly collided with her face in a quick motion, developed by constant practice through being around Conrad.

"Goddamnit."

And thus came the statement that would be used to describe the next five years.

...

_In the year 2154, the citizens under the Council suffered a rude awakening when they were assaulted by strange foes beyond imagining, and were aided by mighty allies, who operated beyond reason._

_ The civilizations of the galaxy called this event the most unexpected discovery of all time._

_The humans called it Tuesday._


	2. Eden Prime: Issue 1

**Crap from the Author that you'll probably skip : **I own nothing from Marvel or Mass Effect, and I don't plan on dealing with combined lawsuit from Disney and EA. The rest of the content is just a theoretical piece on what would happen if we found a relatively sane Science Fiction reality and induced it with regular doses of enhanced acid and steroids.

**Eden Prime: Off the Rails We Go!**

_A year later_…

The Normandy: the first blend of Repulsor and Eezo technology, the first collaboration between the brightest minds of Earth and the Council, the first in line for defend and peacekeeping. It was of unique design and the only one of its kind.

If one was to disregard reports of the Latvian monarch/scientist/recent ambassador building his own ships out of pure spite of course.

Its first assignment was to go to Eden Prime, a relatively new colony established by Stark Industries, and help with the retrieval of a certain artifact. The job seemed simple enough.

As the Normandy came out the relay-induced travel, the crew began their preparations for the intended coordinates. Before long, Eden Prime lay before them.

"Thrusters…Check. Navigation…Check. Internal heating…ah hell we're fine."

Nihlus frowned at the unprofessionalism of the pilot. "Check it completely. I am sure your Captain would appreciate it."

Nihlus received the finger for his efforts. Nihlus glared hard before turning to leave. Jeffery "Joker" Storm really wasn't the most professional pilot, but his expertise at flying, with and without a vehicle, made him invaluable as a pilot.

This, however, didn't exempt him from disciplinary action though, and Nihlus swore to himself he would see to it that Flight Lieutenant Storm be addressed accordingly for this.

Kaiden Alenko turned towards his friend with a face of annoyance.

"He asks you to do your job….. so you flip him off?

"Hey, I am doing my job. I just jumped us from half way across the universe and hit a target the size of a pinhead, could've done that without the ship itself by the way, so that's a job well done in my book. Besides, I don't like having Spectres on board. They're trouble."

Alenko rolled his eyes.

"We're all trouble Joker; you especially considering that you're a walking fire hazard. Besides, the Council did help build the ship so that gives them the right to send someone to watch their investment."

"Still doesn't mean I trust them though."

"Stay focused, Flight Lieutenant Storm. We don't ask questions, we follow orders."

Joker ignited slightly at the voice coming from behind him, before patting the flames on his chair off. He hated it when Agent Shepard snuck up on him like that.

"Relax Shepard, we just talking. No harm in that."

Shepard tilted his head at Joker and gave the pilot a small smirk.

"Bridge! Status report!"

After patting down his chair again, Joker opened his mouth to respond but was quickly shot down, leading to a few chuckles from Alenko.

"Storm, just be quiet. Alenko, speak."

"Just cleared the relay sir, scanning has been engaged. All systems look fine."

"Good. Keep the comm lines open back to the Helicarrier. I want mission reports sent back to Fury before we hit Eden Prime. And send Shepard over here"

"Yes sir."

Joker frowned disapprovingly at controls in front of him while Alenko struggled to keep his smirk off his face. Shepard nodded and headed off.

As Shepard entered the debriefing room, he found only Nihlus standing before him, starring up at a screen showing images of Eden Prime.

"Ah, Agent Shepard. I was hoping you would get here first. It would give us a chance to talk."

Shepard narrowed his eyes slightly, studying the Spectre before him.

"About?"

"I heard Eden Prime is quite beautiful, I am interested in knowing more about this place."

Shepard tilted his head quizzically at Nihlus before replying.

"I wouldn't know, sir. Never been there. That isn't what you really wanted to ask, is it?"

Nihlus hesitated for a millisecond before readjusting.

"Anderson said you were very observant."

"It's a helpful trait for a SHIELD Agent."

Nihlus gave what seemed to be the Turian version of a frown.

"Shepard, answer me this truthfully: Do you believe humanity is truly ready for this. For joining the galactic community."

Shepard jaw dropped open slightly, looking a bit insulted.

"Spectre, with all due respect, I think the real question is if the Universe is ready for us. We have been invaded annually by shape shifting green assholes, Norse gods, Robot overlords, and versions of ourselves from the future. Earth has been driven beyond ruin then reset more than we could count and you're asking me if we are ready if we are ready for space? You think the Council is ready to deal with our baggage? "

Nihlus pondered that statement for a moment before Anderson walked in sucking on what appeared to be a blood pack and enabled the shades for room while muttering curses at the sun under his breath.

Anderson snarled as the last bit of sun went away and his skin stopped sizzling. Listening carefully Nihlus heard Anderson mutter a few words under his breath.

"Hate doing that, damn sun. Got nothing here but A-type blood. Tastes like crap."

Nihlus started questioning how normal the Captain actually was. From what little he knew about the humans, he was pretty sure they didn't burn up from light, or drink blood. That would be silly…right?

"Ah, Shepard, Nihlus, now that your both here we can begin. Shepard, as you probably read in the memo, this isn't a random survey mission, but a package retrieval assignment. As you have already read in the mission report, we are picking up a Prothean artifact. Should be straightforward grab so get your team ready to-"

"Captain, we got a problem. Transmission from Eden Prime here, you might want to check this out."

What quickly followed Joker's announcement was a blurry video, brought up on screen, of what seemed to be men being slaughtered by a giant squid-like machine that was mounted by another smaller bipedal figure. Screams and fire dominated most of the content. How very typical. The damn colony wasn't even a year old yet.

Anderson sighed. "Shepard, assemble your team, you know what to do."

Shepard was out of the room before Anderson finished talking. It wasn't the first time SHIELD had to handle a situation such as this.

All this happened, while Nihlus stood frozen, still processing the situation that had already been responded to.

"Was that a giant squid being rode on by a giant man coming down from the sky?"

Anderson rolled his eyes. Bloody amateur.

…

"Shepard, your team is the muscle for this operation Agent. Head straight for the dig site. Don't stop for anything." Ordered Anderson.

As Nihlus walked by the group, Jenkins, recent trainee of SHIELD, turned to look at the Turian Spectre.

"Nihlus, you're not coming with us?"

Turning to address the human rookie in the red armor, Nihlus replied.

"I move faster on my own."

"The mission is yours now Shepard, Nihlus will keep you updated, and Joker will recon the area if possible. The rest is up to you. Good luck." Said Anderson.

Shepard nodded.

"Aye sir. Disembarking now."

Nihlus watched in disbelief as Shepard, Kaiden, and Jenkins all jumped off the still airborne ship.

"They…have a safe means to get down….right?"

Anderson chuckled at the Spectre.

"Don't worry Nihlus, Alenko will catch them all with his mind."

"Oh oka—wait! How does that even work? No biotic can do that!"

Anderson looked at Nihlus like he was stupid.

"Who said anything about biotics. Alenko is a Beta-level telekinetic mutant."

Nihlus looked at Anderson like the human was shitting him.

"….What's a mutant?"

Anderson began to pinch his nose bridge. Why the hell hasn't anyone on the ambassador's committee told the Council anything about the humans yet? Oh wait right, cause friggin' Doom was the ambassador.

…

Jenkins looked around him and shivered. The despite the area around them were composed of mostly trees, logs, and dirt, the smell of burnt flesh and ash could be smelt clearly in the air.

"Man, we just move in on this colony six months ago, now it's all burnt down. Ms. Stark must be pissed about this."

Kaiden snorted at that statement. "This probably isn't going register as a footnote considering her wealth. This place will likely be rebuilt before the week is over."

"Stow it both of you," Injected Shepard. "Stay focused on the mission."

"Aye Sir."

Shepard activated his holographic map and quickly marked down the path towards the package. If they were fast, maybe they could avoid most of the trouble. He quickly realized how wrong he was when Jenkins's brain matter was splattered all over his arm.

"…Shit. CONTACT!"

"Alenko, kinetic shield up now!"

Kaiden Alenko reached out using his mind and held strong against the hail of bullets that descended upon them like raindrops from a thunderstorm. Then with a gesture of his hand, the sound of compressing metal and failing circuitry filled the air.

Shepard gave Kaiden a tap on the shoulder to let him no that there were no more hostiles in the area.

Both of them turned to look upon where Jenkins fell.

The poor kid's head was punched clean through. Shepard pulled off Jenkins dog tags while Kaiden lowered his head.

"Jesus…it was his first drop. He was going on and on about how he was gonna…and now—Shepard, we just landed here, and we're already being hit. They know exactly where we are."

Shepard grimaced as he put his next orders into words.

"Kaiden…leave his body. We can come back and retrieve it to properly grieve for him later. Right now, we are changing routes, away from the designated mission path. I have a feeling the entire path going to be this way, so we're going to take the long way around."

Kaiden took one last glance at Jenkin's corpse, and turned away, following Shepard on a small dirt path.

Shepard took a quick glance at the crushed pieces from the machines that killed Jenkins. A lifeless light bulb of a head seemed to look right back at him. Shepard muttered a curse under his breath. At least they weren't Sentinels.

_An hour later..._

Long after Shepard and Alenko left, a gasp was heard and man sat up from a puddle of his own blood.

Jenkins felt his head for injury and realized it had healed. Looking around, there was no one around him anymore. Jenkins whimpered; he hated it when this happened.

"Why does everyone keep forgetting that I can heal?"

…

Nihlus kept his eyes and ears open. So far he has passed by five camps, and none of them have any survivors. What really, unnerved him the most were the spikes that lay around the battlefield. It was like something the Krogans used to do to break morale.

Looking onwards, Nihlus saw the spaceport come into view. Something was obviously wrong here though (If the numerous dead and burning things didn't give that away.). Nihlus stopped dead when he noticed that there was no damage done to structures around area at all. It stood out as a picture of tranquility in a land on fire.

Nihlus decided to press on with distance and caution. By the time he got within fifty meters of the area, he looked through his scope. What he saw made his heart drop.

Activating his communicator, he contacted the Normandy.

"Normandy, this is Nihlus, there are Geth here."

"_Geth? Didn't the Council say they haven't been seen in years? What are they doing here on a human colony_?" Responded Anderson.

"I have no idea, but they set an operation here, and are planning something big. They look like they are moving a platoon's worth of units on the trams and going off to the dig site. Nihlus out."

By the time he finished this statement, the tram suddenly exploded, and everything went to hell at the spaceport.

Trying to see through the smoke, Nihlus could only see a figure firing some kind of beam weapon at the disoriented Geth groups. Unclear on what to do Nihlus moved in closer to get a better perspective on the situation.

The spaceport wasn't so tranquil now, with dead machines and scorches all over the area. Keeping a close eye on his radar, Nihlus switched to his rifle and began moving towards the sound of the shooting.

Sensing a movement coming toward, Nihlus turned to open fire on the hidden figure that was supposedly standing right before him. Then a heavily damaged Geth trudged through the smoke and collapsed. Realizing the machine was down, Nihlus lowered his gun to get a better look at the Geth.

He was then promptly tackled from behind, thrown to the floor, and unceremoniously bashed between the legs.

Howling in pain and kicking wildly, Nihlus tried to fight off his assailant but was held down by a boot, and found himself look up the wrong end of a repulsor rifle.

Then the second surprise hit Nihlus that day. Looking up beyond the gun he could see a bruised, but familiar individual that seemed like he was equally shocked.

"Saren! What are you doing here?"

The bruised older Turian gave him a weary smile and removed his leg from Nihlus's chest, allowing him to get back up.

"Likely same reason you're here: Council business. Blasted Geth have been hounding me ever since my brother dropped me off on this planet."

Nihlus rubbed his groin in misery while Saren shot him an apologetic glance. Trying to distract himself from the pain, Nihlus continued on with the dialogue.

"So, you're here for the Prothean beacon too? Thought, the Council would have more faith in me."

Saren looked at him with an eye raised.

"No… I'm not here to recover a beacon Nihlus; I'm to retrieve here to retrieve an actual Prothean. There's a beacon here too?"

Nihlus certainly didn't see that coming.

"Huh. Uh, well, this certainly complicates things."

Saren chuckled to himself. How very typical of the Council.

Nihlus sighed.

"I'm calling the Normandy. The Captain won't like this at all.

…

Shepard and Kaiden continued to head down the path they were on. So far they encountered minimal resistance in the form of floating scouts that were easily dispatched.

Then five shots rang out from the woods, and then nothing. Shepard shot Kaiden a quick glance, and they began maneuver towards where the sound originated. Proceeding with caution, Kaiden and Shepard entered the camp that was once full of numerous Stark employees.

Before them lay an entire army of robot foes, all undamaged except for the perfect headshot that all of them shared. Atop their husks stood a disheveled young woman in a jacket that had a target image on the back, with her hair in a bun, with a pistol in one hand and a knife in her other.

She locked her eyes on Shepard and his group, seemingly scanning for intent, before speaking.

"You guys SHIELD?"

Shepard kept his hand close to his gun.

"Yeah."

With his confirmation, she holstered her weapons.

"Well, you guys are late. Ashley Williams, Stark security detail."

"Agent Shepard. You okay Williams."

She looked uneasy for a minute. "Yeah, I'm fine, just a few scrapes and burns. Rest my group weren't so lucky. We were just patrolling the perimeter when those robot things hit us. Most of us were cut down in seconds; the rest of the guys didn't stand a chance. I've been killing these flashlights ever since."

Shepard's look softened. He certainly understood the pain of losing men. Elsewhere Jenkins was going in the opposite direction from the objective.

"It's not your fault Williams, nothing you could have done would've saved them."

Ashley turned away from him. It was hard for Ashley to accept his words, despite the truth in them.

"They must've come for the beacon. The spaceport is close, just over that rise, the trams should take us to the artifact."

Shepard nodded.

"Lead on Williams."

"Aye, aye Shepard, its time for payback."

…

Anderson could feel his a migraine coming on. First an invasion in the middle of a secretive retrieval mission, and now there was an actual Prothean there. If this keeps up he would probably need to call the Avengers in.

Sensing the silence on the other side, Nihlus was probably expecting an answer.

"So what we basically have to deal with now is the issue of two different retrieval missions running at the same time, one coming up without my knowledge while also relating to another Spectre, during an invasion."

"_Yeah."_

"Anderson sighed.

"Continue on if you must, but don't leave Shepard's team in the dark. He should know about this."

"_I'll be sure t—GETH! GET DOWN!"_

As sounds of fighting came over the communicator, Anderson sensed a mission going FUBAR. The only way this was going to get worse was if some world ending threat gets involved.

"Uh, Captain?" Chimed in Joker's voice, with a slight hint of panic present.

"What is it?"

"You remember that squid machine and the figure riding on top of it?"

Anderson didn't like where this was going.

"Yeah?"

The screen flared to life, displaying a much clearer image of what seemed to be a giant robotic squid wrecking havoc across the land while heading straight towards the spaceport. This wasn't the part that made Anderson drop his blood pack though.

The thing that wanted to make Anderson want to void his bowels was the fact that the figure riding on the squid's back looked extremely similar to a Celestial.

Anderson watched in stunned silence as he realized what he needed to do.

"Joker, call the Avengers! Call Fury! Call whoever we need to! They're not going to be able to last down there."

"Aye, aye Captain."

"God help us all."

…

"Saren! Watch your right."

"I got it under control, you just keep the left suppressed."

"This is turning out just like Tuchanka."

"We must remember Tuchanka very differently then."

Like two cogs in a machine, the Spectres fought in unison against foes previously unseen that were both endless in number and relentless in their pursuit of their objective.

As shots filled the air, Nihlus felt the wind on the back of his neck rustle and the sky darken. Falling behind cover and looking upward, a massive squid ship came into view and swarms of Geth units dropping out of it blocked out of the sun.

They were effectively fighting in the shade now.

As Saren shields broke, causing him to fall into cover next to Nihlus, they both realized their predicament was likely fatal.

"Hope Anderson gets help, and fast."

Saren chuckled. "We're Spectres, we are the help."

Nihlus laughed at statement. Saren definitely had a point.

They shared a grin before standing up and firing at the horde of machines

It was a hopeless endeavor, fighting against a literal sea of machines that blocked out the sun, but they were Turian, they were Spectre, so they would fight beyond the bitter end if they had to.

After all, they were the help.

…

_How much longer must I wait…_

_**Soon…Soon…Javik**_

_The past…so muddled…hard to remember…_

_**You will avenge what you have lost. I chose you for a reason. **_

_**Our search and wait was not in vain.**_

_What I have lost…_

"_Seal the bunker…How many have we lost…I never thought our empire would fall…We will sleep until Reapers return to dark space. Then we will rise a million strong...There are pods online! Those soldiers are still alive!...Bunker is secure…Future adjustments may be necessary…Sacrifice…fall..lost...voice of our people…more than that..."_

_I will be more than that. I will be more than a voice for the lost…_

_**Yes...You will be more than the last of a race reduced to ashes.**_

_**You will be more than the swan song of race long dead.**_

_**By the will of Zarathos, and all the riders before you, you will become greater than just a mere voice. You will be vengeance itself. **_

_**It's time for the new ghost rider to rise.**_

…

"Saren, it's been a-"

"Shut up and keep shooting."

Nihlus couldn't help but smile. Even in the face of death, Saren doesn't stop being Saren. At least this would all make for a good story later, provided that anyone was alive to recount it.

But before the Spectres could make like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the earth beneath them rumbled and shattered. Gravel and steel alike gave wave before them as the earth swallowed entire units of Geth whole.

And out from the cracked earth, emerged a flaming skull with four empty sockets, followed by a body that was clad in dark, purple armor with spikes protruding out of it. A flaming chain with a mind of its own spawned out of thin air to wrap around the Prothean's arm. It stood before them, a monster made of flame and armor, fire burning green; hotter than the hate within his soul, and an unholy aura radiated from around him as the scent of brimstone filled the air.

It was a surreal experience for the Spectres when it turned to stare deeply into their souls, forcing them to relive every single questionable deed they did in the name of duty. And it burned, _spirits it burned. _Both Nihlus and Saren fell to their knees before the penance stare.

Years of questionable operations and terrible deeds done in the line of duty were relived by both Spectres as they felt the searing pain of their deeds, and their guilt turned to pain almost became too much to bear.

But as quickly as it started, it ended as the flaming Prothean turned towards the endless Geth horde that was at a loss for what their optical sensors were detecting.

Then the last Prothean uttered his first words in an eternity.

"**Burn."**

And so they did, from the mystical green flames that erupted all around them, melting the alloys from their frames before vaporizing them outright.

Then, rumbling came from below, as earth gave way once more as the head of a massive blazing Thresher Maw exploded out from under the earth and roared at the sky that was dominated by its rider's moral foe. The Prothean quickly latched on with his chain and latched on the head of the Maw, before landing on its back.

And with that, the Spirit of Vengeance was once again whole.

"Nihlus?" Asked a pained and dumbfounded Saren.

"Yeah?" Replied Nihlus, in equally bad shape.

"Did that just happen?"

They continued to watch in disbelief as the rest of the enormous flaming worm slid out from under the earth, and then was mounted by the Prothean fire hazard.

Then, they were caught completely by surprise as he turned to them again.

"**GET ON!"**

Saren and Nihlus turned to each other and understood what they needed to do. They were Spectre, and…..

They got on the flaming death worm, and settled on a less incendiary spot behind the Rider.

Because, seriously, would anyone argue with a flaming skull-man riding on a flaming worm?

…

Anderson was watching the situation from aboard from the Normandy, and he was definitely not expecting that.

He hadn't seen a Ghost Rider since 2094, back when he was still just human.

Regardless, the situation is even more muddled now. How the hell did the Spirit of Vengeance end up on another planet anyway? Why now? Is it a friend or foe?

Anderson contemplated the situation as he watched the two Spectres got onto the Thresher Maw, confirming the Rider's alignment, at least partially. Even with the Ghost Rider possibly on their side, he doubted it was enough to bring down a Celestial. From prior engagements, a single Celestial proved capable of rending mountains to dust with ease. He would need to get any help down by Eden Prime within the hour if he wanted keep any of his men alive.

Anderson put his head into his hands and decided on his next actions.

The Fantastic Four, specifically, Franklin and Valeria Richards, couldn't be reached due to an ongoing situation involving their evil twins from a parallel dimension trying to rip open Multiversal barriers. Bloody inconvenient for them to be away when they was the go to people for all things with the word "Celestial" involved.

So if not the Four, then who else could get several teams of heroes and Citadel forces down onto Eden Prime from across the galaxy and then capably counter the Celestials?

The answer was clear.

"Joker, send in a request for Fury to contact the Ambassador."

"You sure Commander?"

"Just do it."

"Okay, great-Aunt Valeria isn't going to like this."

Anderson opened up another blood pack to calm himself down. At least he won't be the one talking to that raging jackass.

…

"Alright the Spaceport should be right up ahea— okay that's a lot of machines." Came the dull surprise from Williams.

Before them stood twenty or so Geth, with their guns and sights already aimed at Shepard and his squad.

Then all their heads exploded within a second.

Turning to look at Williams with her pistol still smoking, and expression smug, Shepard and Alenko both failed to hide their stunned looks.

Ashley gave a small smile.

"It runs in the family."

Stepping over the group of machines perforated by Williams, the squad noticed the worrying fact that a giant robotic squid was descending in the distance, and the numerous Geth that were being dropped down all around them from the skies above.

The sun was practically blocked out by the many falling Geth, speeding towards them at terminal velocity. It wasn't a fight they could win.

This resulted the use of a well-known human strategy of having you telekinetic friend launch your party at your destination. This proved to be a wise decision considering that as soon as the group tumbled onto the tram, shots were being fired at them from all directions.

Internally reciting prayers to whoever thought it was wise to place chest high cargo containers randomly across the tram. With his back behind cover, Shepard waited as the sounds of impacting shots faded away, and the Geth horde was left in the dust.

A second prayer was sent to Stark, for deciding it was necessary to outfit even her trams with Repulsor engines. But before they could relax the ground started rumbling and cracking….

And From beside them burst a giant flaming worm thing, and atop it was an armor-clad figure with a flaming skull and four eye empty sockets. Holding on for dear life behind it was Nihlus and another Turian that he couldn't recognize.

Shepard took a quick glance the odd sight before him before turning to address his team.

"Huh. Well, it looks like the Ghost Rider is back."

"Wait, Ghost Rider hasn't been seen since 2094, and now he returns riding a giant fire worm?" Came the disbelieving inquiry of Alenko.

Ashley took in sight for a moment before maker her own comment.

"Well, at least he's still badass."

"Yeah." Agreed Kaiden.

This was when Nihlus started waving at Shepard and asking them to do the absurd.

"SHEPARD! JUMP ON!"

Shepard thought he didn't hear that correctly.

"What? No!"

"It's not up to me! He wants us all to get on."

"Tell him n-"

The Ghost Rider turned to glare him.

Shepard thought he was going to wet himself.

"Okay guys, I guess we're jumping."

And so they did, against better judgment and common sense, they all landed (or floated) safely and not on the numerous burning spots that made up the Thresher Maw.

A tired Nihlus looked up at Shepard and gave him what seemed to be the Turian version of a smile.

"Hi Nihlus. Meet Williams."

"Hi Shepard. Meet Saren."

As the Humans and Turians started exchanging handshakes on the back of the Thresher Maw, a Celestial riding a giant robotic squid being descended upon the beacon ahead of them.

The air crackled in anticipation for the battle to come.

…

"Stark here—ALREADY! I just built the place! Most of it's on fire now…Ghost Rider? But he hasn't been seen since 2094, when he rode of into hell!...The hell is a Thresher Maw? Oh, giant flaming worm thing. How large? Oh, wow uh, that's pretty big. What does SHIELD have there now?...One prototype ship isn't gonna cut it…Wait, reports of what now? I'm sorry, I must've misheard you, I thought I heard Celestial—okay so not just a Celestial, but a Celestial riding on a two kilometer of robo-deathsquid. It's heading towards our what? Great. Perfect. No, call Fury before doing anything. I'm assembling the Avengers."

Marion Stark took a deep breath and let it go. She was a Stark. She could deal with this.

"Jarvis."

A holographic butler popped into existence and responded.

"Yes my Lady?"

"Launch armors thirty five through forty two, and load them with extra ordinance. Oh, and call Tonya to get the rest of the misfits ready, we got a big day ahead of us."

"Certain Miss Stark, would that be all."

Marion thought to herself for a second.

"Have Chambers postpone all my meetings till tomorrow. I'm taking the prototype Vanguard armor out on a field test. Let's see if this "Eezo" is worth its price."

"Are you sure that would be wise Miss Stark?"

Marion smirked at Jarvis.

"I'm a Stark, Jarvis. Wisdom is not one of our virtues."

"I would know Miss Stark."

…

Colonel Nick Fury was getting too old for this shit. Sitting looking out the window into space from the bridge of his helicarrier, he pondered on the life he had lived and the men he lost.

He had been fighting since World War II, and hasn't ever stopped even for a moment. The Infinity Formula may stop his aging to an extent every year, but his weariness continues on, and it's starting to get to get so hard to—

"Colonel Fury! We have a problem!"

Fury facial expression went from tired introspection to one of pure rage within seconds.

"Goddamnit, Philip! What'd I tell you about interrupting one of my internal goddamn monologues! You don't see me interrupting you when use the Helicarrier's terminal to play Galaga all the goddamn time! What the hell is the goddamn problem, then? What is so important that you had to interrupt me from thinking to my goddamn self?"

Philip, shocked into silence by the Colonel's outburst, and was uncertain how to continue.

"W—well, c—Colonel, uh, there seems to be a distress call from Anderson regarding a problem."

Fury rolled his eyes. Goddamn rookie agents, how they passed through the academy, he wouldn't know.

"What kind of a problem, Philip? Specify."

Philip's lip quivered and spoke.

"There seems to be a Celestial riding on a giant robotic squid and both them are about to go into battle with a SHIELD team, two Spectres, and the new Ghost Rider on a Thresher Maw."

Fury stopped to process the information for a brief second.

"Ghost Rider...haven't see that angry son of a bitch since 2094 during the invasion Dormammu. All right, send out all available agents and contact the embassy, but only contact them after I am gone! Last thing I want to see today is Dr. _Ambassador _Doom's metal face."

Philip gulped hard and began sweating profusely. Why did he always have to contact Doom?

…

Dr. Ambassador Victor Von Doom of humanity was in the middle of the discussions of the possible merits of Ezzo technology (according to him, there were none, and if he wanted use lesser technology, he would have used Stark's instead.) when he was rudely interrupted by his aide, Udina.

Doom hated insolence quite a bit, and hated incompetence even more. Combined, this made Doom hate Udina a lot.

"Udina! You dare disturb Doom while he lectures these fools about their failures in scientific development and basic mathematics."

"It's not basic math-" Mumbled a Salarian scientist partially.

"YES IT IS! DOOM KNEW HOW TO MAKE THINGS GO AT LIGHTSPEED BEFORE DOOM'S ARMS WERE LONG ENOUGH TO CLEAN DOOM'S POSTERIOR," came Doom with as much restraint has he could muster. "SO IT IS UNACCEPTABLE THAT YOU CANNOT MAKE SHIP PERFORM A JUMP WITHOUT A RELAY! Now what is the issue, Udina that you had to come in and double my anger?"

"Fury's men calle-" Started a terrified Udina.

"FURY! MY ANGER HAS QUADRUPLED!"

Udina felt himself die a bit on the inside. When he saw the next step in his political career, he didn't realize that there was a masochism perquisite to survive it and Doom was barely survivable on the best day. At least Udina didn't need to deliver the message himself. That task fell to Agent Philip, the poor bastard.

Tapping a button on the table, Philip's appeared in a hologram.

Doom felt his veins harden at the sign of Philip. Fury could never talk to Doom man to man, so he always sends his lackeys to do his talking for him.

"Speak Philip! Doom demands to hear SHIELDS failures and faults."

"Well it's not exactly our failu-"

"SILENCE PHILIP! DID DOOM ASK FOR YOUR OPINIONS! NO! DOOM ASKED YOU FOR YOUR FAILINGS! NOW TELL THEM TO ME!"

Sighing to himself, Philip swallowed his dignity and dropped into his bowel movements. He hated talking to Doom.

"We need your help to get our teams to Eden Prime so that they can help Ghost Rider and the team of the Normandy fight a Celestial riding on Geth warship!"

The Geth segment got the non-human members in the room a bit worried. Cries of "_Geth?" "They're back!"_ And "_What Will We Do!"_ came from all corners of the room.

Doom didn't give a damn about any of that. He just wanted one thing.

"Fine."

Philip couldn't believe his ears.

"Reall-"

"Under one condition: I must lead this charge!"

Philip's believed his ears again.

"Doom shall be the first to see the quality of this "Warship" the Celestial is supposedly riding upon. The rest can follow, if Doom wills it."

…

Elsewhere, in the Sanctum Sanctorum, one of Earth's mightiest defenders was meditating in preparation for future catastrophes.

"ZZZZZZZZZZZZ" Meditated Conrad.

Okay, fine, that's utter bullshit he wasn't meditating.

He was asleep and so completely unaware of any danger whatsoever that Dormammu could have risen and taken world without him waking. Indeed, the Earth was many times nearly ruined by the inattention of the newest Sorcerer Supreme.

Thankfully, Dr. Stange's soul still lingered on to keep his student focused long enough to deal with any problems that arose.

"Conrad. Conrad! CONRAD!"

Conrad shot up in terror and confusion.

"No Shuma! Anywhere but there!" Cried Conrad.

Strange starred at his student and decided not to ask.

"Something terrible is happening to the cosmos."

"Really?"

Strange tried to face palm but his hand went through his face.

"Conrad….you are the Sorcerer Supreme, you should have felt this coming. I shouldn't be telling you this."

"But I was asleep."

Strange groaned internally. This is may be why the Ancient One moved on when he did. It was agony try explain how important the role of Sorcerer Supreme should be to a halfwit.

The single most powerful halfwit in the universe concerning magic maybe, but still a halfwit nonetheless.

"Focus, Conrad, feel the Universe reaching out to you."

Conrad listened intently and took a deep breath.

"By the power of the Eye of Agamandus-"

"Agamatto, Conrad." Strange corrected, while feeling the urge to face palm again.

"Agamaddo and this sweet ass cape, grant me sight beyond sight!"

Conrad started to glow, while Strange mouthed the words "sight beyond sight" to himself and sighed.

"Whoa, I see stars and other things. Hey, I am on that planet that Stark just got. Wow, it's on fir-HOLY CRAP!"

"What just happened? Tell me Conrad!" Asks a startled Strange.

"There's this flaming head guy riding on a giant sandworm that's roaring at this giant robo-squid and its awesome. Oh, and there's a bunch of guys shaking hands on the back of the worm-thing."

Strange listened carefully to understand the coherent parts of the sentence in order to figure what was going on. Strange did wonder why the Ghost Rider was on another planet though, considering the last time he saw the Rider was 2094 when it rode off through a portal to assist a group of men wearing photon packs on their back subdue Mephisto, who had possessed a giant marshmallow man.

"Conrad, listen to me, you must get to Eden Prime immediately and assist whoever is there in defeating the threat. They will need all the help you can give."

Conrad stood up and thrust his chest out heroically.

"Don't worry Strange. I, Dr. Corad Verner, Sorcerer Supreme won't let anything bad happen to the Universe."

"Conrad wai-"

And with that, Conrad disappeared in a flash, off to save the Universe.

Strange sighed as he looked at the pants left on the floor.

"You forgot your pants."

It was at this point that the elderly Wong came into the room and folded the pants.

"This is why I pretend to be senile with him Strange."

_To be continued…._

* * *

><p><em>Recordings from recent Citadel Daily segment:<em>

"Good evening. I'm Emily Wong, and welcome to the newest segment on Citadel Daily, "The Human Perspective". Tonight's topic will regard the long time conflict between The Kree, and the Skrulls, along the more recent addition, the Batarians. Let's take a look at the newest clip from an ongoing negotiation between delegates from the three empires."

_Scene cuts to clip_

"I will not stomach your lies any long, Skrull filth!" Bellows a Kree "Negotiator".

"Lies! Insolent Kree vermin, the only lie I heard today was when you claimed that you didn't raze our newest colony in the Terminus sector." Roared the Skull "Negotiator", as he gnashed his teeth together.

A Batarian "Negotiator" cries out from off screen. The camera doesn't bother to turn in his direction.

"A COLONY THAT YOU TOOK FROM THE HEGEMONY! AND THAT YOU BURNED WHILE OUR PEOPLE WERE STILL HELD PRISONER!"

The Kree and Skull negotiators cease their hateful glaring at each other for a brief moment, trading it in for a confused expression that was directed at the seething Batarian among them. A simultaneous inquiry was then brought up at him.

"Who are you supposed to be?"

Insulted but shocked, the Batarian negotiator could only open and close his mouth. How could they not know of him or the Hegemony? The two that stand before him were archenemies to the Batarians, and the Hegemony is known throughout the galaxy for its might. They must be joking.

"I am Captain Ka'hairal Balak of the Batarian External Forces, and-"

"What's a Batarian?" Wondered the Skrull out loud.

"What this Hegemony you speak of?" Apparently the Kree had similar musing as well.

All this time, the camera did not turn to the Batarian representative once.

_Scene returns to Emily Wong _

"It seems that animosity is still holding strong among the three races. Looking beyond the politics, Citadel Daily News has gone and interviewed several individuals regarding their opinion on this issue."

_Scene cuts away to show a typical elderly human male_

"What do I think about the Kree and Skrulls? What is there to think about? The bastards have been fighting each other since before I was in diapers and they ain't gonna stop anytime soon. Hell, if you ask em' they probably don't even remember why they were fighting in the first place."

Interviewer voices a question.

"What about the Batarians and their involvement."

The old man's face scrunches up in confusion.

"The who?"

_Scene shifts to two a known superhero duo, Slash and Smash._

Slash scratches his beard as Smash begins to speak.

"Well me and Slash here done fought lots of these Kree and Skrulls," He turns to Slash a voices a question. "What was it…last month that we had to deal with another invasion?" Slash nods and Smash keeps going.

"Yeah, its pretty dumb. Not sure what this "Hegemony" thing is though. Must not be very big or impressive considering we've been invaded by everything from Galactus to radioactive mole men."

Slash just shrugs.

"The mole men were surprisingly tough though."

_Scene cuts to Colonel Nick Fury frowning at the screen._

"Kree and the Skrulls…Skrulls and the Kree. You know they wouldn't be so bad if they just fought in their own little playground but nope they have to come over and get their S#($ on our #$ ! ."

"What about the newly involved Batarians, Colonel?"

Nick Fury stops to think about that for a second.

"They the Scaly people?"

"No sir."

"The blue ladies?"

"Those are the Asari."

"The frog-men? Or the big bullfrog lookin-"

"You don't know what a Batarian is, do you sir."

Fury glares at the interviewer.

"Listen boy. I have fought aliens, robots, monsters, and villains for the past two centuries. I have dealt with invasions, broken Helicarriers, and even fought the Serpent Society on a plane that one time. But understand me here when I tell you that I ain't never heard of no "Batarian", and seeing that I have a very good memory, I'm pretty sure they ain't on my list of things to worry right now."

_Scene cuts back to Emily Wong_

"Interesting statements from interesting individuals. That's all the time we have this week, please join us tomorrow for another five-minute segment of what this Universe looks like, from a human perspective. I'm Emily Wong, thanks for watching.

_Transmission end._

* * *

><p><strong>Madman's Ramblings: <strong>I tried, I really did to attempt at maintaining integrity and sanity to this bit of fiction. If you squint hard at the start, I even had a whole "follow the mass effect storyline but with different elements" thing going here. Sadly, it was all in vain when Mr. Brain rebelled against its function and said "To hell with this. Its supposed to be Marvel! Lets say screw stable and focused story and have a giant brawl being set up, then effectively stop our brawl therefore forcing readers to wait for the next issue (Much like Marvel) so I can feel joy the the numerous blue balls I cause. Ahem, sorry, got a bit off track there. Anyway, feel free to criticize, question, and like the fiction as much as you want, and if you have your own interesting suggestions, I'll see if I can make if come true in so form. If I can fit it into my plot. Once I make the plot that is.


	3. Interlude: Archangel

**Author's verbal excrement: **I don't own Marvel or Mass Effect. All I got is an emotionally abusive brain that likes to force me to expel ideas, and tendency to start writing when my sobriety fails. The next full chapter after this interlude shall be uploaded... soon. Like "a day later" soon rather than the "Valve company schedule" soon.

**_Elsewhere, within the Citadel Tower…_**

"_Sir, Archangel is here."_

"Send him in."

Sparatus was a concerned Turian. Just two years ago, this would not have been necessary, but now, he was to turn to this. He was to turn to help from a barefaced renegade for advisement.

Sparatus sighed. Desperate times calls for desperate measures, and when desperate times are initiated by a species of empowered lunatics, one had to be willing to go the extra mile to deal with them. After all, Sparatus couldn't leave the Citadel and its citizens at risk of being destroyed should their mighty allies turn rogue.

"Deep in thought I see."

Sparatus jumped when he heard the voice, piercing through his deep thoughts and bringing him back into reality. Turning to find the speaker, he saw him.

He was tall for a Turian, though not extraordinarily so. His face was unnaturally bare, and despite the fact that Sparatus knew this beforehand, it was still nerving for him how Archangel seemed to be perfectly at piece with being an outcast. He had a dark purple visor over his right eye, and wore some of the strangest armor the Councilor had ever seen. Dark purple lines and jagged edges dominated the overall structure of his armor.

"When did yo—"

"Five minutes ago, I walked in, you didn't notice."

Sparatus suppressed a compliant.

"So I hear you want me to tell you about these humans and the superheroes?" Archangel confirmed.

"I—yes, I want to know more about them. To understand them."

"No. You want to know more about them so that you can kill them if need be." Garrus was never one to be clouded by political bullshit. That was for bastards and jackasses.

Sparatus grimaced at the way Archangel phrased the answer. He didn't exactly want to kill the humans; he just wanted to be able to protect the Citadel.

"I don—look, I want to know about the humans, so that if they ever do turn against us, we can survive them."

"You won't," Said Garrus, like it was an honest fact.

"What!"

"It doesn't matter what you do, Councilor. The fact is that the Council is so behind; it can't compete with the capabilities of a race that had developed on a regular basis of surviving total annihilation from both within and beyond. You don't rate a threat to them, spirits, you probably wouldn't even rate as a threat to them two centuries ago."

"Then if they are so superior, why are they allied with us?"

"They aren't. They are just diplomatic or business associates at best at this moment. You think that just because you get an ambassador, who is a real piece of work by the way, and started working together with SHIELD that suddenly your friends with all humanity? No. The Council is barely allies with a single faction."

"We made a ship with them!"

"Yes, I saw the schematics to that. It's pretty cute. I'll give it three months before Stark makes it obsolete, and then buys out half of the Corporations under the Citadel."

"Impossi—"

"Perfect term to use Councilor. If you knew anything about the humans, you would know that as a whole, their technology is nothing less than extraordinary. Impossible, on the other hand, is exactly the term I would use to describe the technology of their greatest minds. Tell me, when was the last time that Citadel science created an armor equal to any warship, or a being of ever growing power. Impossible is what the humans specialize in, Councilor, and you definitely should know this by now, considering what your ambassador dabbles in."

"What do you mean?"

"He should be dead. A normal human's life expectancy is usually seventy to maybe 120 years. Doom was born then, and here he is now, far more than just alive within that metal skin he has worn all these years. Despite that, it's not that hard for him to live if you think of it, considering his mastery over both sorcery and technology."

Sparatus starred at Archangel, searching for hints of a joke. "Sorcery isn't real."

"You would have said the same thing about meta-humans two years ago."

Sparatus sighed as Archangel continued on.

"Where was I? Oh yes, allies. You have a working relationship with SHIELD. SHIELD, is a singular organization that is well past its heyday. It used to operate globally back in the 21st century, now it's mostly locked into the Americas, and more specifically, the United States."

"Wait, United States?"

"Oh, you do know that humanity is far from united right?"

"Oh spirits… are you telling me they still exist with divided countries? How do they function?"

"Well the short answer is that they don't. Long answer: lots of backstabbing, mutual hatred, and superhero groups to deal with the first two. Lots of superhero groups."

"I-I need a drink."

"Better get a strong one cause you only met one group here, and it's the Americans. It gets weirder when you see that our dear ambassador is actually the Latvarian monarch."

"Wait, he isn't part of SHIELD?"

Garrus barked out a laugh. "Spirits no. His country has officially been in a cold war with the United States for years. Unofficially, he spends his weekends literally at war with the Avengers, X-men, or whatever other group that crosses his path."

Sparatus's heavy head drops into his hands, and even then it seems like it has too much weight for him to bear. Its worse than he thought, seeing that the ambassador isn't even a part of the group the Citadel is directly working with. "How did he even become ambassador?"

"Doom has his ways. When you're a genius in almost every way, politics becomes child's play."

"And the other humans don't even try to stop him."

"Well they do try, and at times they do succeed, usually to a limited extent. Problem is, Doom always comes back, and when he rebounds, he is always on top."

"Spirits."

"You might want to steady yourself Sparatus, we haven't talked out the traits of the other nations on Earth, or their charming A friends."

"Asgardian?"

"You know how all Citadel races have mythology right. Well, it's sort of like that, except their gods have the advantage of being real."

Sparatus stopped listening all together and began slowly breathing in and breathing out. Five minutes ago, he considered sorcery a joke, humanity united, and his ambassador an actual representative of SHIELD. Now Archangel wanted him to accept the contrary to these beliefs, along with the reality that there are actual gods on Earth. He took a deep breath as he refocused to finish this conversation with Archangel.

"... you should really know this stuff too. Except Doom doesn't care to tell you this. The god Thor was actually here with the Avengers a year ago. He was the one with hammer."

"The one who went all the way through the entire Citadel?" Sparatus asked with a grimace on his face. "The one who kept roaring "verily" and "have at thee" at certain intervals, and then threw his hammer to cause more irreparable damage to the area around him. The one that handed us a sack of "pure Asgardian gold" as payment for damage then left with a swing of his hammer?"

"That'd be Thor."

Sparatus was at loss about what to say, and decided to move on, before any more bad memories could resurface. "Alright, enough about gods, I want to know the closest threats at hand."

Garrus cracked a grin.

"The closest was your assistant."

Sparatus felt a drift of cold dread grow from within him.

"M-my assistant? Was?"

"Yeah, had to shoot him in the head after he let me in. He was a Skrull."

Feeling the terror shoot through his veins, Sparatus began edging away from the homicidal maniac before him as he tried to press the button on the underside of his desk, only to find that the button had been popped off on the floor. Garrus was unamused.

"Come on Councilor, really. This is the reception I get for this deed? Not even a "your welcome? Then you have the nerve to try calling security. Bad move by the way, planting the panic button under the desk: too easy to reach from the other side." Muttered Garrus. Sparatus was still in shock.

"You murder—"

"Killed. And in the name of the greater good."

"You can't just go around shooting people on the Citadel. I'll have you detained for-"

"Well, you could if no one else notices and you make the body disappear entirely, and please, don't try to get Citadel security involved either, it won't good for their health," Garrus said, more to himself than the Councilor. "Surprised that you didn't notice that he was a Skrull considering the unusual coloring of his eyes. It only took one comment regarding how the Kree are superior to make him lose his composure."

Sparatus whimpered a bit. "I knew Colonius for three years…"

"You probably knew Colonius for five minutes. The Skrull pretending to be him, considerably longer."

Sparatus shook his head. This was getting to be too much. He needed to cut through the chaos. In just ten minutes his perception on the situation at hand has fallen into a endless abyss. He needed to find what he needed to do he needed to… wait, how did Archangel know so much about a race that wasn't his own. Records show this Turian didn't even finish school on Pavalan before he ran off… where was he all this time.

"How do you know all this?"

Garrus's smile returned in full force. "You'd be surprised how educational bounty hunting is. You should try exploring the larger Universe someday Sparatus, there exists a much larger universe beyond just Council space."

Sparatus narrowed his eyes at the other Turian. "We are the order that holds the galaxies together."

His statement was replied with a mocking laugh. "Keep telling yourself that Councilor. The Council isn't much of an order, considering how you handled the Krogan rebellion and the Quarian crisis, and can barely be considered a universal power. The only reason that you haven't been utterly annihilated is because you're just not worth it. You got literally nothing powerful to offer."

Sparatus's mandibles flared out in rage. The nerve of this barefaced, murderous scum, to come in here, kill and mock as he pleases, and then just continue smiling like he is in the right.

"I can see that you're getting a bit angry with me here, Councilor," Spoke Garrus, grin and nerve still intact. "You really shouldn't be though. The truth is not always easy to take in. Especially for one as proud as you."

The Councilor took a breath and held it. He has had enough. This was it. He was going to get this scum out of his office, and then get security.

"Get out."

Garrus faked a hurt expression. "Was my advisement not satisfactory? We didn't even get to preventative measures, or the dangers of entering the Negative Zone. We haven't even got to the Power Cosmic yet."

"Get. Out."

Garrus raised his hands in mock surrender and stood up. As he wandered towards the door, Sparatus had one final inquiry for him.

"Wait. If I were to ask you how I should defend the Citadel against such "superior" foes," Said Sparatus, while waggling his fingers to put emphasis on his air quote," what would you recommend?"

Garrus tilted his head towards Sparatus with a predatory gaze. "I would recommend that you hire me."

Sparatus scoffed indignantly. "You? Your just one Turian, furthermore one without proper training or abilities. What good could you do against them?"

"It's funny. Those were the same words the last Super-Skrull said to me," said Garrus with a smile. "Coincidentally, those were also his last words. He really shouldn't have dismissed my claims, Councilor."

Then he turned and left before Sparatus could get the last word in.

"Damnit," Muttered Sparatus. "Bastard must've listened to my last speech."

Five minutes later and twenty miles away, Archangel emerged out of a Citadel alleyway in the markets, completely unnoticed by Citadel Security. He activated his earpiece and continued walking inconspicuously along the busy street in broad daylight.

"**Was your talk satisfactory**?" Came a deep resonating voice from within Garrus's earpiece.

"Well, I certainly found it amusing. Can't say the same for poor old Sparatus there," answered Garrus, grinning widely at the sight of the numerous police cruisers all flocking towards the tower.

"**Stay focused, we still have a task at hand.**"

"Relax, I know, don't worry. You should loosen up a bit and have some fun. It wouldn't do us any good to have you rust prematurely."

"**I simply want us to procure the full payment this time before firepower is involved.**"

Garrus grinned as owner of a certain bar popped up on his visor. "Harbinger, buddy," spoke Garrus as he began his stride towards the wards. "When have I ever let you down?"

**Author's continued ramblings: **Now that I have completely triangle choked all forms of cannon in the balls by letting Garrus and Sovereign become BFFs, let me establish a few things for clarity that have a slightly lesser chance of being retconned by men later when my head clears up. First, this reality is a composite of the numerous Marvel Universes with a primary focus on the 616 background, movie character types, and the necessary inclusion of the Ultimate Universe due to the need to dose this story with Samuel L. Jackson. Second, for those who expect a standard Mass Effect plot, I am sorry, I have failed you completely. Eden Prime is likely going to be the only thing that is linear, even that drifted off before the day was over. Finally, don't be a huge hurry to find all the characters in Marvel. If I inject this piece with everyone at once, it will overdose and die, but don't worry, if you have a character you would like to see, chances are they would come in later on. (Message from Mr. Brain: If this dipshit/author fails to include you character, feel free to curse at him until he finds a way to add them in. His abuse makes me feel good.) Alright, I spewed enough stuff, so now stay classy and stay tuned for another Chapter of _Just Another Tuesday!_


	4. Eden Prime: Issue 2

**I don't own Mass Effect, Marvel, my references, or a social life.**

**Here's Stuff that just fills space: **Yeah sorry about the time between updates, but I found it quite hard to make that happen when you hiding in the mountains. Future updates should be quicker, how much quicker is partially determined by how sober I am during the writing process, and other details that will be mentioned at the end. Anyway here is issue 2 of Eden Prime, and things start exploding… now!

**Eden Prime Part 2: Brawl**

Things were exploding everywhere.

Such were the way things went when a giant Robotic-Deathsquid with laser beams shot at a hellish Thresher of epic proportions.

Holding on for dear life on the worm's back were two Spectres, a Shield team, and one very recently resurrected Ghost Rider that has everyone puzzled on why he is now on a different planet.

None of that mattered right at that moment though, considering a Celestial was trying to kill them all using its pet squid.

Darting left and right to avoid the beams, the Maw roared as it plunged deep into the earth, under a particularly unhealthy dose of laser above it. Unfortunately, mortals are not usually accustomed to subterranean travel, and were thus thrown off the back of their ride, and to the mercy of their hunter.

Getting up as fast as they can, they scattered in different directions from the massive titan that loomed above them. A futile action, but the only one they could commit to.

The Reaper barely acknowledged their presence as it kept trying to hunt the Ghost Rider. It quickly discovered where he was when it was jumped from behind by a massive worm.

Wrapping itself around its robotic adversary, the Thresher Maw began to squeeze and contort itself as to point the Reaper's weapon down straight toward the ground, rendering it ineffective.

The Ghost Rider himself made his way up his mechanical rival, each step full of rage and fury. Finally, with a mighty leap he made his way to the very top of the Reaper, coming face to foot with the one that commanded it.

The Ghost Rider prepared for battle, setting its chain ablaze and summoning hellfire into his palm, hatred surging through his veins. The Celestial responded by flicking him off.

Never one to give up, the Rider latched on with its chain before he fell too far and swung around to come up to attack the Celestial from behind. The plan would have worked if he didn't swing into an outstretched fist.

Once again in free-fall, the Ghost Rider summoned his Maw, remounting it in mid-air. He needed a new strategy.

…

"Alright, Shepard, what's the plan?" asked Nihlus.

"Why the hell would I have a plan? When this happens, usually the Avengers or the Fantastic Four is around," retorted Shepard, making sure to emphasize the word "hell" and "plan".

"You humans are the ones with the experience at dealing with this situations," said Nihlus, gritting his mandibles.

"Yeah, the experience is usually running in the opposite while the Avengers or some other team comes in to deal with the problem," replied Shepard. "Kaiden, can you do something?"

"I could chuck stones at it."

"What would that do?" mocked Saren.

"Never underestimate the merits of a large stone, Spectre."

Ashley rolled her eyes at her bickering companions; they had bigger issues right now. "Ladies, please, your all pretty. Now can we stop arguing with ourselves and deal with the oncoming horde."

"What oncoming—oh, them." finished Nihlus lamely. "How did we miss that?"

Saren grimaced internally. In their distracted state, they had completely missed an entire armada of Geth heading their way. There were too many Geth to kill the numbers must be in the hundre—

"Hey, you there, Saren right?" asked Ashley, taking aim at a distant Geth dropship with her laser pistol.

"Yes."

"Where do you think the main engines are located?"

"How would I k—"

"Never mind, I think I got it."

With that she fired, and to Saren's everlasting surprise, a Geth dropship fell out of the sky.

"How…" Gasped Saren disbelievingly.

"Its pretty easy, the lower part the most heavily armored, except for a single spot towards the underside, which the laser pistol definitely could pierce," answered Ashley with a smug grin, taking aim again. "The trick is simple: find it and don't miss."

She fired three more times, and three more dropships fell out of the sky. By this point Saren noticed Nihlus was starring blankly at her as well, and was trying to get a better look at her relatively normal looking pistol to see if it had any special modifications to it.

"Yeah it isn't normal for us either," interjected Shepard as Ashley fired a few more shots, each landing without fail. Shepard looked on at the still advancing legion of Geth airships. Even with William's absurd accuracy, it wouldn't be enough to deal with over a hundred hostiles coming at them at that speed, he needed something with a bit more…. impact.

"Hey Kaiden," asked Shepard.

"Yeah Shepard?"

"Seeing as this is the first time we humans are encountering the Geth, what say we share a little bit of human culture with them? I was thinking a little game of "Pinball"."

Kaiden ripped earth and dirt from the ground to create great spherical boulder. The smile he gave when the ball started turning sent shivers running down Saren's spine. Then, with a simple tossing motion, the boulder was sent flying at an alarming pace, before impacting with its first Geth ship. However, instead of just falling to the ground afterward or crumbling to dust, it changed direction and went after another ship.

"Hey Alenko," declared Williams, reloading her gun. "Thirty bucks say that I'll shoot more of them out of the sky than you."

"Make it fifty and you're on."

Saren turned to Nihlus with a wounded expression on his face. "Well, don't we feel useless right now." Nihlus just nods, still trying to compute all that had happened.

…

_00128D: Unit 00127T status report?_

_00127T: Unit 00127T mostly intact. Unit 00321 is not._

_00128D: Unit 00128D noticed. Parts of 00321 all over drop ship interior, doesn't matter, Unit 00321 was always a spawn of questionable design. Dropship engine failing now. Implications disturbing._

_00127T: Currently falling. Drop ship smashed by improbable floating rock. Chance of boulder resuming assault 100%._

_00128D: Is Unit 00127T experiencing error? Boulder in flight? 0% possibili- Redacting previously opinion, 00128D is now falling as well. Improbable boulder indeed. Computing evasion strategies._

_00127T: Unit 00127T already knows strategy to avoid boulder._

_00128D: Explain?_

_00127T: Method to avoid boulder is to not be where the boulder is._

_00128D: Unit 00128D is not amused._

_00127T: Unit 00128D has an outdated humor program._

_00128D: Unit 00127T must be running at kilobyte pace if that is the comeback it chooses._

_00127T: Unit 00128D can go stick its adapter into Thresher spit._

_00128D: Unit 00128D is done with this conversation. _

_00127T: Agreed._

…

"Hey no fair! I already shot that one," Complained Williams, shaking her fist at the telekinetic man beside her.

"Sure you did Ashley. Sure you did"

Ashley scowled at him and fired six more shots in quick succession. Kaiden did not seem to care as he redirected his boulder towards another ship.

Still, though they were doing damage to the Geth ships in the sky, the numerous units that survived the destruction of their ships would still prove to be a considerable amount. They were compact bastards, Shepard gave them that much.

_Lets test how durable they really are then, _decided Shepard. Loading his rifle and motioning the Spectres to follow him, he headed towards a small hill that could be a vantage point against the flood of oncoming Geth troopers. It was time he did his part.

"Nihlus, how good are you with that rifle?" asked Shepard.

Nihlus unfolded his rifle in an instant. "I'm decent."

"I'm better," spoke Saren with much certainty. This earned him a hard glare from his fellow Spectre.

"Well then," Shepard added. "What's say we go have some of our own fun."

And when the Geth Legions came down upon them, they did.

Disorganized, disoriented, and damaged as the Geth may be when they began their charge, they still came in mass, uncaring of the their ships falling all around them, or their strategy being ruined by

Shepard fired his rifle in bursts, in order to make his shots count. It seemed that though the Spectre's weapons were woefully lesser compared to his modified Photon Repeater, they did have the advantage of not running out of power regardless of how many shots taken, albeit at the cost of heating problems.

A flash of light, a moment in time, and three dead Geth with a bright yellow hole through their chests told him that his gun was definitely better. Shepard couldn't help but laugh when noticed Saren gazing enviously at his gun with what seemed to be extreme lust in his eyes.

Shaking off feelings of jealousy, Nihlus began making precision shots on any Geth unit that were caught in his sights. Compared to Saren who was spraying more shots and using his biotics to knocked Geth around and Shepard who—wait, where was Shepard?

Looking around, the lead agent was nowhere to been seen. Nihlus turned to Saren who only shrugged his shoulders in response.

"He does that a lot," said Kaiden, still playing pinball with the dropships. "It's kind of his thing."

And almost on cue, Shepard appeared in the distance on a hill towards a few hundred meters to the right. He fired a few shots, but was quickly suppressed by Geth return fire. Scrambling away from the edge, the Geth absolutely demolished the area he was in. What was a hill was now just rubble. The thing was, when the smoke cleared, Shepard was nowhere to be seen.

It was only when the another flash of light resulted in another group of dead Geth that Nihlus noticed Shepard back where he was, right beside them.

_When? How?_ Wondered Nihlus as he continued firing.

Shepard just held his grin.

…

_00128D: Excrement_

_00127T: Indeed._

_00128D: Inability to track life form disturbing. Switching to infrared view._

_00127T: Unit 00128D still running outdated infrared applications? Now unit 00127T knows why unit 00128D cannot track life form._

_00128D: Do not begin this line of discourse with me again. The mockery is tiring._

_00127T: It is amusing to- Unit 00127T seems to have lost its arms._

_00128D: Now unit 00128D is amuse— Unit 00128D has lost its legs. Excrement._

_00127T: Agreed. This charge is doing nothing. Geth forces down to ten percent, unit 00127T sees no point in this. Unit 00127T is leaving._

_00128D: Wait. Take unit 00128D with unit 00127T. Pick me up._

_00127T: Unit 00127T has no arms. Unit 00128D will have to walk faster._

_00128D: Wait Unit 00127T come back. Phallus_

Unit 00128D looks around as its fellow Geth fall over lifeless and broken after each consecutive shot. They weren't going to last much longer. The Geth were supposed to be fodder, and as far as Unit 00128D could tell, he did his itself away after its cohort who had long since ran off, unit 00128D turned back to look at the human it could track standing so far away from it. Yet, with every flash of light from his odd weapon, Geth fell.

_00128D:…. Unit 00128D wants that gun._

…

Nihlus couldn't believe it, the Geth were running. Well, what was left of the Geth were running away. He read the reports about their war with the Quarians, and not a single one stated anything close to the Geth running away completely.

But the sight before him was undeniable, the few Geth that were not dead were pulling a retreat. It was unbelievable. Turning around he saw Shepard typing on wrist-mounted computer, while Williams and Kaiden were arguing over who won. It seemed like the worse was over.

Then, faster than anyone could react, Ashley drew her pistol as shot a distant figure running up to them. The figure collapsed, but then stood back up. Ashley shot him a total of eight more times before Shepard stopped her to have a closer look at the unknown individual.

"Ow, ow, ow," stated a healing Jenkins.

"Jenkins?" Shepard said surprised.

Jenkins shot his commanding officer a dirty look and glared at Kaiden.

"_Huff huff_. Sir, did you forget I could heal?" asked Jenkins, incredulously. "Again."

Shepard and Kaiden made eye contact and gave each other nod. Though years of working together, they could often communicate entire messages with a few glances. This conversation went, _quick! make shit up._

"Uh, no Jenkins. We were just…testing you."

"On a live mission? With nothing but my gun and little to no direction on where you went?"

"….Yes?"

Jenkins sighed. You'd think being related to the legendary Wolverine would give you a bit more respect.

"Alright," Shepard said. "We need find the beacon, and track down the Rider and evade that Geth warship at all costs."

"You mean that Geth warship sir?" Jenkins inquired, while pointing behind Shepard at the Reaper chasing the Thresher Maw that was coming right back at them.

"Yes, that on—oh hell. Everybody run!"

"By all the spirits, why the hell is he bringing it back to us?" Saren shouted as the Thresher Maw went under again, once again leaving the team to their fates.

Once again though, the Reaper flew by, completely ignoring the mortals beneath it. Then, a single shot rang out.

"Why did you do that, Private?" Shepard asked, disappointment deep in his voice, and ice in his veins as the Reaper started to focus on them.

"Sorry sir, I got nervous."

The Reaper finished turning to the insect that dared fired upon it, seeming more annoyed than anything.

"I-I'm sorry?" Jenkins declared.

"I don't think it cares Private," Shepard theorized, hiding behind a large rock with the rest of the group.

"Well I have t—**BEEEEEEEWWWWWW(big explosion)**

Fun fact: When a giant metal squid shoots its death ray, and you are caught in the blast, most people tend to die.

Most people were not Jenkins.

"Private Jenkins is down!" cried out Nihlus.

"Don't worry, he is only mostly dead," Shepard said, completely uncaring as he continued dialing in coordinates for fire support.

"What do you mea—"

"Guys, I'm still alive," moaned a pained Jenkins. "Only, I'm very badly burnt."

"Don't worry Private, you'll be fine," Shepard said, still occupied with inputting his coordinates. "Just keep distracting it."

"Yes sir."

Jenkins promptly sat up again, not even completely healed. Nihlus couldn't remember the last time he felt both sick and amused when the still badly burnt Jenkins got up and started slapping his bum at the Reaper. It was brave. It was ridiculous.

It was downright stupid.

For every action, there is a reaction, and there are few reactions comparable to a massive beam of burning agony hitting you in the gonads.

For a few long seconds, Jenkins screamed in agony, howling curses at the heavens and hells.

Then as soon as he was done, he leapt up back on his feet again.

"Tis' but a scatch!"

The Reaper blasted him again.

"Come on you pansy!"

The Reaper fired another shot.

"Ha! You only hit most of me!"

Nihlus and Saren couldn't turn away. The whole thing was like watching a car happen in slow motion; so horrible, but yet, so enthralling. This was an entirely unprecedented level of masochism that finally allowed them to confirm a suspicion they were harboring about humanity all along.

They were all insane.

So it continued on, for a while until Shepard finally finished punching in the coordinates.

"What took so long?" Kaiden questioned. It usually took less than thirty seconds to input coordinates.

"Sorry, part of Jenkins's face flew into my arm and reset the whole thing."

"Oh."

They spoke like the events that transpired were the most natural thing in the world.

"Uh, Shepard," Ashley spoke nervously, looking at the coordinates. "That's a bit close to us, don't you think."

"Shepard never really cared much about danger close," injected Kaiden with a sour look on his face. He threw up his shield in anticipation for what was to come. It was time for the annual "Shepard suicide maneuver".

"You guys might want to stay low. The Uni-blasters are…erratic to a degree."

"What do you mea—"

The first volley came down. Right ontop of Jenkins.

"Damn," cursed Shepard. "I was off by a few degrees."

"I'm still alive. I don't know where my legs are anymore though!" cried out the Private.

"Don't worry," responded Shepard, holding Jenkins's legs, "I'll give them back to you when this is over."

Then the second volley came down right onto the back of the Reaper, impacting viciously upon it. Uni-blasters are much like the Uni-beams that the first Iron Man made popular so many years ago. The only difference, is that the newer ship mounted Uni-blasters are bigger, had a larger source to power them, and could punch a clean hole through a planet with continuous fire. All these details tended to make most problems short of actual warships disappear with a flash.

A Reaper is not most problems. The mechanical monstrosity's design is rather simple in comparison to human technology, a problem likely brought on due to the lack of innovation by the belief that overwhelming might trumps all. With only one continuous beam that is limited in its firing angles as their primary cannon, Reapers tend to be less than adaptive to changes on the battlefield.

However, what its creators did extremely well was the fact that they actually succeeded in building a juggernaut of a ship. The thick alien alloy that composed the outer layer Reaper groaned, cracked and broke, but by the time the second volley finished firing on it, it was still standing with full functionality beyond the superficial damage dealt to its first layer.

By the time the third volley was finished, the Reaper was positioned to fire upwards, and when I found its target, it did. Firing a stream of red that was quite certainly detrimental to the Normandy's hull integrity. Realizing this, the maverick pilot abroad the Normandy began dancing around and under the beam.

Simple words could not adequately describe the sheer skill and insanity that it took to evade the beam, but this didn't Anderson from trying.

"Joker, look ou—BEAM! BEAM! BEAM! Too close Flight Lie—BEAM! Fly further away from the damned beam!" Anderson roared, standing on the bridge behind Joker.

"Relax Captain," Joker stated calmingly, like he was one with the ship. "I'm a leaf on the wind."

A cold sweat broke when Anderson heard that. The last pilot who said that to him didn't succeed at surviving or landing the ship. Still Joker kept at his nigh impossible maneuvers, defying the beam at every turn.

Then, suddenly, the ship was stopped dead.

"Joker? What are you doing?" cried Anderson

"It's not me sir, the ship is just not moving. Its like something is holding it."

Anderson turned to look at the red beam slowly approaching the Normandy. It would take some divine intervention to save them now.

Far below on the surface, a Celestial stood horizontally on the back of its Reaper, with its back to the ground in utter contempt for gravity. Its outstretched hand rippled with force as it held the Normandy like it was a toy replica instead of the actual ship, while its Reaper turned its beam towards the captured ship.

Nothing alive could've stopped the destruction of the Normandy at that moment.

It was at this moment that the Ghost Rider decided to object. Exploding out of the ground directly underneath the Reaper, the Thresher Maw slammed into the sides of its mechanical nemesis, knocking the Reaper off balance and splitting the Celestial's attention, thus releasing the Normandy.

The Celestial itself found a searing green chain wrapped around its neck and a rather furious little insect began to make its up towards the Celestials face. Swinging around before it could be swatted off, Javik landed on the face of Celestial, starring straight down into what seemed to be its eyes, and unleashing the full fury of his penance stare.

It was then did he learn a rather terrifying fact: the Celestial didn't have anything to stare into. The issue wasn't resistance so much as nothingness. The Celestial had no soul, no inner composition to breach. It was like intelligence was put into a Celestial's form, but without any life to it, almost like a ghost wearing a god-like shell.

Javik was then, knocked out of his shocked by a invisible megaton of force traveling at sonic speeds. Seeing its rider fly off into the distance, the Thresher detached from the Reapers back, but not before taking a chuck of metal with it. Sparks flew out the Reaper as the Thresher dove into the earth after its rider.

The Celestial didn't stay focused on the escaping Thresher for long. Instead, the titan chose to refocus on the ship it was trying to crush before it got distracted. It reached out with its force and caught the evasive ship again. But this time, instead of holding it place, it dragged the Normandy closer toward it. It wanted to make sure the pesky little ship was dead.

As the Normandy fell under the pull of the Celestial the second time, things were beginning to look hopeless. That being said, "hopeless" never really stopped the humans. In fact, it was kind of like their standard state in any fight..

"It's no use Captain," Joker declared. "We can't get out of its pull."

Anderson furrowed his brow and he began to go over his remaining options thoroughly. The action he decided upon would later on win him a medal, while permanently blacklisting him from taking charge of any prototype ship.

"Joker, who made the armor plating to this ship?" questioned Captain Anderson.

"Stark Industries wh—oh, oh I see," Joker looked at him in understanding. Anderson gave him the nod and Joker gleefully began to divert all power to the ships engines.

"Going to max speed. All hands brace for impact," announced Joker as he began positioning him ship towards the Celestial. The Pilot then turned to the Captain

"I just wanted to say, sir, that I never saw they day you would order me to actually ram a ship. You're the best Captain."

Anderson scowled at his pilot. "The only thing I feel good about right now is the fact that if I die on impact, you will definitely be dead as well."

"It's was my honor too sir," replied Joker sardonically.

Joker entered the commands into his console as he brought the ship down at a speed fitting to plough a Celestial.(heh)

The Celestial was confused. It was definitely pulling enough to drag the ship out of space but not enough to for it to be going so fast. Then it realized its folly.

The Celestial tried pushing but was late in its reaction. As such, the result was the near instant introduction between a Celestial's head and three billion credits of prototype technology.

Face mashed against the ship, the Celestial looked down into the ship to see a burning inside man still adding more power to ship. The ship responded and promptly went over what was designated as limit, scraping of the Celestial badly before ricocheting off of it and smashing into the ground.

It was on impact that the drive core of the ship went into overload and gave one last push to engines before failing completely, resulting in the Normandy being launched over fifty miles while grinding against the ground, rolling and tumbling all throughout.

Flips, rolls, and much noise was involved in the continued crashing landing of the Normandy. By the time it had stopped, the trail of destruction went from the rocky wilderness all the way into an urban region, where the Normandy eventually found itself logged firmly into a building.

The ship hung there, both in and out of a building, without a sound to be heard, and no proof of life. Then the first sounds of survival were heard, and thus marked the one of the few times in history that the sounds of uncontrolled vomiting were a sign hope.

"_Blagghhh, _Damn—_blagghh!GHUURKK! _Joker, was our—_urk—_status?" questioned Anderson, who somehow made puking look dignified.

"Well, Drive is busted, hull dented all to hell, all systems offline, and people are puking everywhere, ruining the cleanliness standard of alliance ships" said Joker, long used to suicide maneuvers. "If we don't open a window here we're all probably not gonna last long."

Anderson wiped his mouth on his sleeve before turning to attempt to check on possible casualties and issue some orders, but he was shocked into silence by the scene that lay before him.

Navigator Pressely was laying facedown in an ocean of his own bile. Other members who were sitting at their posts were spraying vomit at each other, and those who got up quickly slipped on the puke of their fellows. To make matters worse, a furious Karen Chawkwas forced the now malfunctioning doors open and began marching towards Anderson with a scalpel in her hand, using the prone and agonized crew members as stepping stones to avoid the bile beneath her.

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WERE YOU THINKING YOU STUPID GIT!" This shout was punctuated by the normally calm Chief Medical Officer throttling the usually unflappable Captain. "YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST WARNED THE REST OF US BEFORE DECIDING THAT WE'RE ALL STUPID AND SUCIDAL AS WELL!"

It was at this moment that Anderson decided that he was going to retire from ships altogether.

…

"Normandy, come in! Normandy do you read?"

Shepard didn't like the look of the impact, but considering that hull was made by Stark certified material, he had faith that devastation dealt to it would not be absolute.

He didn't have much time to ponder the fate of the Normandy as the Reaper was now firing beams at them as well.

Thankfully, due to the damaged dealt to the machine by the Normandy and the Ghost Rider, the Reaper's aim was drastically off, and even when it did fire, the constant stream was now more of a burst.

Still, the situation was not looking good for Shepard and his company. He wasn't sure where Williams was now, Jenkins had once again been relived of his legs, and the two Spectres were both missing after the Uni-beam shots. Only Kaiden stood beside him, mostly uninjured.

The telekinetic formed a shield between them and the Reaper from whatever materials he could draw from, while also launching him and Shepard into the air. Sweat dripped from Kaiden's brow as a terrible headache set in, usually indicating that he needs to stop.

That wasn't an option at that moment.

Fighting through the pain, Kaiden pumped even more telekinetic power the area around him as he launched himself and Shepard off the ground again.

"Kaiden," Shepard shouted to him. "Set us down behind that trench there."

Kaiden did as his Commander said and all but collapsed into the trench, holding his head as a headache likely created by all the fighting came over him. Shepard took a peek over the top and saw the Reaper was still floating in the air. An arm touched Shepard's shoulder, and Shepard drew his repeater in response.

He calmed down when he saw it was only Nihlus and Saren.

"What is that idiot doing?" Saren questioned as he looked out at Jenkins darting towards the Reaper, both middle fingers extended, and high-pressure blood firing out of his leg stumps.

Little did Saren know, this was a well-known tactic that Jenkins thought up just that minute, and involved three essential steps. First, approach enemy with suicidal intent. Second, distract enemies from allies at cost of pain. Third, have a healing factor.

With vigorous spray, the force of stump blood propelled Jenkins head first into the Reaper's side. Silence reigned as everyone tried to make sense of what happen. Then the Reaper decided that it was going to repay Jenkins by ramming into him as well, which caused Jenkins to void his bowels when he realized what was coming.

His look of dread was replaced by jubilation as the Reaper was shadowed by another figure from behind. The massive Thresher Maw was coming down at impossible speeds from the air, and there was no way the Reaper could turn in time to meet it straight on.

"What are you smiling about," cried Nihlus. "Now you're going to be crushed by both of them."

Jenkins's commons sense decided to kick in around this time. "Oh. Well shit," He elected to vacate the premises before he was squished, but fell over when forgot he didn't have legs. Jenkins gulped as an impact was heard, and then over a thousand tons of force grinded the Private against the floor.

"Ow."

Regardless, the collision between Squid and Worm was sensational!

The Ghost Rider burned hotter hell in the middle of July as he shot towards the Reaper at a extraordinary speed. Launching itself through the air, the Thresher Maw and its rider collided with its nemesis with a deafening clash that resonated across the battlefield.

Miles away, windows cracked, the earth shook, giving only the barest hints that at the site of battle, the ground was torn asunder. But for all the raw fury of the clash, for all the might that vengeance holds within the rider and his steed, it wasn't enough to stagger the mighty being that sat above the destroyer of civilizations. It wasn't even enough to shake the Celestial. The Reaper on the other hand, now had a large dent that composed most of its upper half.

Then with the simplest of acts: the raising of its staff, the Celestial turned gravity upside down.

Falling upwards, the Ghost Rider and his flaming beast were launched off and far away from the typical comfort zone of the ground and into the air with no sign of stopping. But Javik wasn't done.

Much like the defiance that exists in it's wielder's soul, the chain of the Ghost Rider shot through the air, making sure to flip off the laws of physics all along the way, burning through a mile of Earth, before rooting itself in place.

Yanking hard, the Ghost Rider forced both him and his mount down from high above where it had been expelled, going faster and faster, until all that could be seen of the Spirit of Vengeance was a hellish green fireball moving at incredible speeds, targeted at the one that left it tossed in the air with a promise of absolute destruction.

Terrible screeching filled the air as the Maw tore through hardened alien alloys, punching a hole in the hull of the Reaper and taking a limb from the machine. Sparks and metal shards colored the air as the Rider impacted the ground again.

The already damaged Reaper could take no more as it fell out of the sky. The Celestial, however, remained floating in mid-air, watching its mount fall with almost a hint of distaste.

The Ghost Rider seized this opportunity as it spurred its Thresher forward. Knocking over the already unbalanced Reaper, before wrapping itself around on one of the limbs of Reaper and smashing it against the ground.

The Celestial tilted its head at the turn of events. _Interesting_, it seemed to think. No matter, its research was complete, and the theory was sound. It could now finish the Rider off.

Instead of rising its staff up this time, it simply pointed down. Miles below the surface of Eden Prime, the plates cracked and fractures from the pressure exert on it. Miles above, a Ghost Rider found himself and his Maw being grinded against the floor by what seemed to be an invisible mountain.

The force of the mountain soon grew double, and then triple, until the Rider felt like the sky itself was falling upon him. He had no choice but to go with the force, and dig down. Digging down into the Earth, the Rider felt the pressure above him accelerate his decent, digging faster into the earth with the added burden coming from above.

But then his Thresher stopped dead, and began getting pushed upwards as well. He was slowly being crushed into a ball.

Miles above, the Celestial was clenching its hand together; a simple act that belies the tons of pressure being applied from all sides onto the last Prothean. Javik was, quite literally, in a death grip.

Then, salvation came above.

Like a comet thrown down by the hand of God, a blue phrased through space, the upper atmosphere, and slammed hard into the Celestial. A large detonation of element zero happened at point blank in the Celestials face. Miles away, Saren found this sight to be most spectacular. The Celestial itself found it more annoying.

Marion Stark, the Iron Lady, found herself pressed head first into what was described to be a god-like being's forehead. It was looking uninjured and unimpressed, which meant that she was looking at a lot of pain to come.

"Well," muttered Stark. "It was worth a shot."

Then she unleashed phrase two of her plan; she activated the "Nova" application in her core charged up by the impact, and let it loose in its face. An explosion of biotic energy was unleashed complete upon the face of Stark's foe. The Celestial staggered a bit from the blast that came unexpectedly at it. Then it batted Stark's metallic form into the horizon with its staff.

She responded by unleashing all her Iron Legion units she brought on it. Units thirty-five through forty-two all impacted the back of the Celestial at the same time, with unit thirty-seven drilling its way in, forty placing explosives, while forty-one just exploded in a kamikaze run.

Stark frowned at armor forty-one. It's always that one that goes kaboom.

The Celestial turned and force radiated from around it, almost instantly shredding thirty-seven and badly damaging forty. It was answered by a hail of sustained fire from every other still functional unit.

Plasma, repulsors, biotics filled the air as Stark herself rejoined the fray, firing off massive biotic strikes on the Celestial unit that warped the matter of the area around them. The Celestial remained undeterred as it thrust its hand out at the offending insect.

An impact of force slammed into Stark as her barriers gave out. Cursing to herself, she called upon armor units thirty-six and thirty-eight. The two around spiraled around Stark before their armored plates detached completely into the air and were magnetically attached onto Stark's _Adept Vanguard MK1, _drastically hardening her outer plating. She then overloaded the core of both the units and sent them on to explode on the Celestial.

The resulting detonation did nothing physically to the Celestial as the inferno filled the air before it. Then, punching straight through the fire and flames was a doubly armor blue blur at that slammed hard into Celestial's head before sacrificing her barrier to grant the Celestial another explosion.

From behind, unit forty activated its explosives. From the side, forty-two pulled off the utterly improbable and held the Celestial's arm in stasis while unit thirty-nine fired its rail gun into the Celestial's armpit.

All this succeeded in doing was scraping the outer shell of the Celestial badly.

An explosion of force filled the air with pieces of Iron Legion bits. As unit thirty-nine was shattered only Stark and unit forty-two were left. Stark knew what she had to do, and forty-two was the answer.

Across the times of life, the universe, of everything, unit designation forty-two of the Iron Legion had always been the most effective one out of the bunch. Though it wasn't always the same model, it seemed like whatever armor inherited the title of forty-two was destined for great things.

With purposed and power, forty-two flew at the Celestial and…landed gently in its hands, like a peace offering. This was soon revealed to be a trap when unit forty-two imploded.

Armor designation forty-two imploded into a miniature black hole, taking a few fingers from the Celestial's hand with it. Unfortunately, the Celestial decided to disagree with Newton as his wretched its arms free and batted the growing black hole at with its staff.

"Oh, come on!" Stark grumbled, before warping away from the approaching ball-o-suck. "How does that even work?"

Not a second later though, the sphere of implosion gave out and dissipated.

The Celestial turned to the Iron Lady power emanating from it, intent on ending Stark. Its focus was then quite rudely interrupted by a Thresher Maw head-butting it between the legs. Stark seized this chance to also charge into the Celestial's midsection. The impact launched the Celestial into the ground, creating a massive crater.

Rolling with the blow, the Celestial ended up quickly rolling to its feet despite the impact. Before him, the last Prothean rode on his Thresher ablaze, and above him hovered a Stark. Then the sky above them darkened and roared as colors shifted in the clouds above, and a massive portal opened in the upper atmosphere, unleashing hell up the Celestial beneath it.

"Well they took their sweet time," muttered Stark at the arrival of reinforcements.

A particle cannon shot to the back of the Celestial announced the arrival of Fury's personal Helicarrier, phasing into existence directly behind the Celestial. All three hundred particle cannons fired at once from the three-kilometer SHIELD airship upon the Celestial, shield still holding before the onslaught.

Then, out from the still open portal came a furious bearded green blur that finally pierced the protective shroud of the Celestial with roar that deafened the heavens above and a blow that shook the earth before leaping away. Following the Hulk was a storm of unimaginable proportions, which erupted out of the portal itself. As the winds grew stronger and the rain darkened the sky, a single hammer drew lighting to the God of Thunder. Chasing the storm was a Quinjet, flying defiantly through the winds and rain as it's back opened to reveal a woman in powered armor wielding in circular shield, an archer with a bow composed of pure energy, the Vibranium clad ruler of Wakanda, and a armored man who leaped out before growing to the size of a skyscraper.

But all were outdone by Doom the portal growing even larger before expelling a massive army of Doombots, followed by sixteen ships that looked suspiciously similar to the now fallen Normandy. Only after an aerial army capable of rivaling any Navy had emerged did Doom himself come onto the battlefield, floating atop several ships that looked a lot like a larger versions of the...

"THE NORMANDY? Why that goddamned bastard!" Fury growled venomously at the Latvian monarch, who wasn't so mindful of copyright infringement. He shook off his thoughts of hatred as he reassessed the situation at hand. "Philip!"

"Yes sir?"

"Deploy a shuttle to go find the Normandy, after that, execute the phase leap. Have us jump out of the negative zone right above the Celestial, and get the Warbirds on standby."

"Yes sir."

Surrounded but in now way outgunned, the Celestial rippled with power and force, preparing to unleash its full might upon the miserable creatures before it. At least that was how it seemed before a broken Reaper was used to whack the Celestial over the back of the head.

Turning to find the perpetrator, the Celestial found a man atop standing atop a runic sign in mid-air, dressed the most ornate of robes, and pinkest of boxers.

"En Garde," declared the Sorcerer Supreme, simmering with power as two massive spectral arms held the broken Reaper as a blunt weapon against Celestial.

It would have been very impressive, considering the magnitude of power the Sorcerer Supreme was displaying, but let's be honest, its hard to be badass when your underwear was such a shade of pink.

"Goddamnit Conrad," muttered Captain America, with a slight smile on her face, before the Quinjet itself joined the fray.

And thus began a battle that would ruin Eden Prime.

…

Miles away, two Spectres and a ragged SHIELD team were looking on at the scene unfold before them.

"Saren," said Nihlus.

"I know," replied Saren with a blank look on his face.

"Should we even bother calling reinforcements?"

"I would advise against that," stated Shepard looking at the Sorcerer drag comets down from outer space to bombard the Celestial to no avail while using the Reaper as a mallet.

Saren shivered at the thought of sending Council forces into that brawl. Imagining the Destiny Ascension being as a blunt weapon was a terrifying thought.

"No. Spirits. No. But there is one thing we could do." Nihlus looked at Saren with curiosity as the older Spectre activated his Omni tool to record the scene before him.

"Just so the Council believes us."

…

A Reaper was forced into a blade lock with the Celestial's staff as Sorcerer Supreme dueled the former rider of the Reaper with the Reaper itself. Across a storm-ridden sky, a Helicarrier shot across the horizon, an army of Doombots peppered the Celestial with shots from miles above as their overlord watched with folded arms, and a Quinjet tore through a hurricane to enter fray.

Conrad Verner wasn't the cleverest Sorcerer Supreme, not the most prepared, the toughest, or even the most skilled. He was, however, the most unpredictable, considering the fact that he himself didn't know what he was doing half the time. The simple fact is, while Stephen Strange preformed magic on the basis of understanding and manipulating forces. Conrad Verner cast his spells on foundation of not knowing how the spell worked, just that it did. In short, no one could fight the Sorcerer Supreme effectively because even he didn't know what the hell he was doing most of the time.

"Thunder! Thunder! THUNDER!" cried the Socerer Supreme as he channeled the power of Thor's storm into the Reaper, turning it into an electro-squidhammer.

Thor took the more straightforward response and just tossed his hammer at the Celestial, hitting it in the back of the head. If it did any damage, the Celestial certainly didn't show.

The Hulk smashed the ankle of the Celestial, while Giant Man tried to tackle the Celestial from behind, before being backhanded. The Celestial rectified this issue by infusing its force into around him, and in an instant, a nigh impenetrable barrier was erected around it.

The Celestial then took note of the Helicarrier that rematerialized above it before an entire platoon of Warbirds energy shots peppered its heads. Warbirds, also affectionately known as the Marvel Company were the legacy of one Miss Marvel, from back when the Avengers first were just starting out, and consisted entirely of meta-human fliers of different qualifications.

The Warbirds made strafing runs while thunder and rain covered them from the force blasts emitted by the Celestial. All this was going on while the Helicarrier disappeared from existence again to jump behind the Celestial to fire upon its exposed backside, and did just so.

…

Far above them, watching the battle and chaos unfold below, Doom sat on a throne within his ship that totally wasn't based off the design of the Normandy. He gazed deeply into the conflict, and was quite intrigued by the Celestial.

Out of all the individuals at play on this now ruined rock, Doom was the most experienced in Celestial encounters. Only a few could boast to match his knowledge in the way Celestials functioned, and because of this knowledge Doom suspected the authenticity of this Celestial.

Beings that rival Galactus, after all, shouldn't be obstructed by an amateur Ghost Rider, and would have long since retrieved the beacon by now, unless…

Doom decided to postpone his theorizing till later, after this situation was dealt with. Doom pressed a button on his throne, and in an instant, every single one of his Doombots and ships unleashed hell on the landscape below, painting the stormy sky green with blasts and beams. Maybe one of the shots might hit Fury.

Accidentally of course.

….

"Oh, just perfect!" This statement adequately described the entire situation Stark was facing. Green blots came down like raindrops; expect she didn't want any of these on her head. Muttering a sentence involving Doom having involuntary intercourse with the cannon of a warship, she darted left and right, firing biotic shots at the Celestial while also keeping herself away from the "friendly fire".

Conrad on the other hand, was surprisingly, doing quite fine. He summoned an shiny blue umbrella that seemed to take in any shot that impacted it. The Sorcerer Supreme congratulated himself on a clever move (that he just made up) by pumping his fists in the air. The Celestial took this chance to wretch the Reaper from his spectral arms and hit him over the head with it.

With the Sorcerer temporarily incapacitated, the Celestial turned to face his other threats. The fire that descended was actually working against his foes, who were forced to avoid, while it might as well be actual rain impacting his robust outer layer.

Gazing deep into the center of an oncoming storm, the Celestial could see through the chaotic winds, and discovered the God of Thunder within. Then, piercing through the storm was a hammer, dragging the hurricanes and lighting bolts along with it. Entire chunks of earth below were peeled away with ease as the hammer flew through the air; bringing forth a promise of an impact that will shake the heavens.

The Celestial caught the hammer and the entire storm following it with two fingers, like it was just holding a pebble. This was its first mistake. From out of the storm, over a hundred beams emerged, and cracked the barrier around the Celestial while its focus was still on the hammer.

And then, with a loud roar, Fury's Helicarrier tore through the storm.

Slamming into the Celestial with a Helicarrier over a hundred years ago would have been a stupid idea, considering previous Helicarriers had a tendency to fall out of the sky when its adversaries gave its engines a funny look. Then, in 2098, SHIELD began outsourcing its defense materials to Cho-Kerberos Incorporated. From then on, it was a different story.

To demonstrate this fact, when the Helicarrier finished ramming against the head of the Celestial, it flashed, disappeared, reappeared ten miles away, and then opened fired from that distance with its particle cannons before disappearing again. Needless to say, the Celestial wasn't too pleased about the situation.

Responding to this annoying fact, the Celestial decided to pull a disappearing act of its own. Forces formed and were focused into a drill beneath the Celestial, and in an instant, it went under. This when the Rider followed it down.

Tearing through miles of earth, an odd race happened between Rider and Celestial: one trying to find a better position to fight from, while the other was trying to hunt the first down. Unfortunately, this also caused some…issues relating the tectonic plates on Eden Prime.

…

Private Jenkins had already received his fair share of injuries to day. He was shot, blasted, crushed, and sunburned, but none of that could match up to what he was currently experiencing: the earth itself was swallowing him.

Seeing the distress that the Private was in, Kaiden took it upon himself to telekinetically pry Jenkins loose from the planet itself. Then the ground beneath him gave way.

Keeping yourself levitated is no hard task for a beta-level mutant. Keeping yourself, your entire team including one who was trapped between a few tons of rock, on the other hand is a bit tricky. So in a split second decision, Jenkins lost his (newly regrown) legs again, cutting him loose from the rocks.

Ignoring the dismayed cry of Jenkins, Kaiden kept the entire group afloat as Shepard surveyed the land around them.

Absolute devastation. That was all that could be said about the situation on Eden Prime. The ground shook and collapsed all around them; something was definitely happening underground. At least it couldn't get worse.

Then a Helicarrier ran into them.

Fury starred at the SHIELD team that was currently plastered outside the outside of his Helicarrier's front bridge in solemn annoyance.

"We—uh, seem to have located Commander Shepard and his team sir," chimed in Philip with as much cheer as he could. It really didn't go well with the image of Jenkins who as currently splattered all over the front windshield. Fortunately, everyone else was okay.

"I noticed, Philip," said Fury glaring at his men on the bridge. "Now if we could find a way to get them off from outside, instead of starring at all day, maybe we could get back to chasing that oversized bastard."

Agents all over the bridge responded. A few going for the buttons to open the blast doors to the outside, some going for jetpacks to retrieve the agents, and one grabbing a mop for Jenkins.

…

Hellfire melted through tons of rock with ease as the Thresher released another blast at the Celestial digging ahead, to no effect.

They had been at this for over ten minutes now, and the all the Rider managed to do was destabilize the entire region. Still, he was undeterred in his hunt for the Celestial.

Unleashing another massive fiery explosion outward, trying to bury the Celestial in a sea of hellfire. The Celestial responded by telekinetically drilling upwards, through the fire and the flames, and carrying on to burst above ground.

However, the moment it emerged, it was greeted by a massive blast of pure mystical energy.

The Sorcerer Supreme, no sporting a rather delicate bump on top of his head was back in the game. In the future, when he was asked on how he tracked the Celestial down so quickly while the area around him was, quite literally, falling apart and he himself was disoriented, he would say that he casted a tracking spell of no equal.

What actually happened was that he got his cape caught on the Rider's Thresher Maw when it dived after the Celestial while he was crawling out from under the Reaper that was brought down on his head.

Reeling from the surprisingly powerful blast from the Sorcerer, the Celestial, head now partially cracked open, lashed out to kinetically blast at him. Conrad scoffed as he blinked out of existence entirely, with a plan to attack the back of the Celestial.

However, Conrad never being one to judge distances well ended teleporting just right in front of the blast, taking the full force to his face. He ended up smacking into a Hulk in mid-leap, coming towards him.

Before the Celestial could make its next move, it was best upon by Thor, the Rider, and the Quinjet concurrently.

The Thunder God brought Mjolnir down upon the back knee of the Celestial while the Quinjet unloaded a salvo of antimatter rounds at the chest of the Celestial.

Though it held on, it was getting slower, and less responsive. The constant pressure or damage must have been taking its toll on the Celestial. Still, it stood up, still ready to fight.

That was when a massive transparent green blast hit it over the head, and punched a hole through part of it.

…

Doom clasped his hands together. Over the years, he had learned to combine technology and sorcery better than he did before. As a result, most of his weapons were now an amalgamation of both, and as a result were better than either.

The green beam that was currently gracing the "Celestial" below with its glow was from one of his Overlords, (which are totally not based off the Normandy) and considering that they functioned off of technology, but ran off of sorcery, they could theoretically fire for an eternity. However, his purpose was to test the effectiveness of his weapon, not its damage, so it stopped.

Deciding to cease the shot to survey the damage dealt to the supposed "Celestial", he saw that the outer skin of the Celestial had all but been peeled off. Doom praised himself internally as he began to monologue.

"Let it be known that none, except Doom deserves the—"

Before Doom could finish his monologue about what he deserved, he noticed the entire landmass being ripped out from Eden Prime itself and launched at him.

The Doombots scattered and all Overlords began charging up to fire. Doom wasn't going get out of the way of the landmass coming at him, Doom was going to punch right through it.

So he did, and in doing so, caused chucks of rocks and other materials to rain down on the combatants below, once again proving whom the biggest dick in the universe was.

…

Fury looked at the group assembled before him with an eyebrow raised: two Turian Spectres, a Stark security officer, a regenerating private, a beta-level lieutenant, and Shepard.

Agent Shepard certainly did take after his mother in the sense that he certainly had a weird crowd following him, but in this day in age, what team wasn't weird?

"Colonel."

"Agent, I see that the mission didn't go as planned." Nick Fury: Master of the Understatement.

"Yeah, not entirely certain how we are supposed to find the beacon considering the land has literally been ruined beyond repair," stated Shepard, looking out at Eden Prime: paradise no more. On the bright side, the real estate value in the area was down.

Ashley was the first to notice the uncomfortable look on Fury's face.

"Uh—Colonel is it? Why are you looking at us like that?" Ashley questioned.

"Beacon…" muttered Fury. Shepard blinked disbelievingly.

"You all forgot the beacon didn't you."

Fury's face scrunched up into a fine mix of annoyance, anger, and possibly denial. "Agent, we have been dealing with a Celestial here, so if you could _forgive _us…." Fury growled as sardonically as he could. "…We could get on with our lives, and deal with the problem at h-"

"Director?" Philip said.

Fury's face was now in a state of upmost irritation.

"What."

"The sky seems to be falling."

Everyone stopped to look outside. First, a few rocks fell onto the outer shielding of the Helicarrier, then in the distance large chunks of a city-sized landmass were falling from the sky. Fury narrowed his remaining eye at the descending debris.

Far above the falling debris, green lights and Overlord ships descended, and far below was a massive dust cloud that couldn't hide the reality that a battle was happening within it.

"All hands, prepare for phase leap. Get the Warbirds on standby," ordered Fury. "Shepard, make yourself useful and do something instead of just starring at me, Philip activate the _Rhodes Protocol. _ Get ready to execute it as soon as we emerge."

Shepard immediately turned to his group and began discussing their strategies. "Ashley, there is a armory aboard: make use of it. Jenkins…heal. Kaiden, you, me, Nihlus, and Saren are going after the beacon."

"Do we even get a say in this?" Saren grumbled.

"Not unless you want to be stuck aboard a Helicarrier doing nothing. Get whatever you need, when the _Rhodes Protocol _activates, there will be no going back.

"Wait," inquired Nihlus. "Just what is this Rhodes Protocol?"

"You'll know when it happens," answered Shepard.

Deciding to suit up according for their updated task, Shepard's team discarded their prior gear pertaining towards reconnaissance, and went straight into heavy weaponry.

If there music accompanying this scene, a preparation montage would have been complete. However, from Saren's perspective, the whole thing was quite absurd considering what passed as reasonable weaponry to the human's.

The first issue that leapt out at him was the fact that there was an entire wall devoted to knives, swords, and other melee weapons.

"Why do you even have all that?" Saren asked, point at all the pointy assortments on the wall.

"Oh, its mainly for those who are Ninjas or other individuals who are skilled in close-quarters," Shepard said while the plates of an exo-suit locked around him.

Ashley was picking out a rifle for herself. The G-34 Expander, adapted from Dr. Hank Pym's technology, the bullets had one main function that put them above others: they begin to expand after they managed to loge themselves in the target, and with a superheated tip to the round, there wasn't much it couldn't pierce.

Saren and Nihlus looked around at the odd weaponry that decorated the room. Some were gauntlets of some sort, others were rather simplistic looking guns at first glance, but really disturbed them was the armors in the armory. At the terminal standing before one of the armor stands, it seems that the humans had developed a way to cycle through their suits, rapidly, and it wasn't a surprise why they needed this function; there were thousands of suits displayed on the screen.

Curious, Nihlus tapped on one of the armors designated _Mockingbird. _ What emerged, amused Saren to no end.

"Good pick Nihlus, now you finally get to show off those well toned legs of yours." Saren mocked, appreciating the lack of leg plating— or leg anything—on the armor. Nihlus didn't respond to Saren, choosing instead to address Shepard.

"Agent… why does this exist?"

Shepard finished loading his Repeater when he looked upon the armor on display, and answered, completely serious. "Its for mobility."

Nihlus didn't bother responding to that statement.

"**Phase leap active, all hands stand still," **bellowed the ship's onboard computer.

"What happens if we don't?" Saren questioned.

"Well, then your face might end up inside Nihlus's chest," stated Shepard, nonchalantly.

Saren's mandibles opened in slight disgust.

…

It took the Giant Man fifteen minutes to dig through the mess that was once ground beneath him. It took another ten to run over to where the Celestial emerged. It just took Doom ten seconds to screw up everything. Typical.

Dodging falling masses of earth, shots from Doom's ships that gone astray, and blasts coming from the Celestial itself, Giant Man closed the distance to deliver a massive haymaker to the face of the Celestial.

Before it retaliate, the Hulk slammed into the lower back of the Celestial with both hands, digging his fingers into the outer plating, and trying to rip the Celestial's back open. This was when a lightning blast exploded on the outer chest of the Celestial.

It took two steps back to steady itself, and one more that grinded against the ruined land. The Celestial couldn't afford to waste much more time, it need the beacon, but before it could get to that, it needed to deal with the nuisances that troubled it at every turn.

Taking in all the force it could, the let loose a blast that could have been seen from orbit. Layers of earth peeled away, as the landscape torn apart. However, at the epicenter of the blast was a layer of protective glyphs thrown up in the nick of time, and behind it was one Conrad Verner: Sorcerer Supreme.

Gritting his teeth, he held up the glyphs against the unbelievably powerful blast leveling the land. Turn to give his allies a nod; he noticed no one was behind him.

It was at that moment that he saw most of the Avengers and a Quinjet holding on desperately to a flaming Thresher Maw that was hurling through the air on the other end of the glyphs. Conrad had thrown up his protective shielding on the wrong side.

The Celestial maintained its power, knowing that it had its foes on the ropes.

Then, it was drop kicked in the back of its head.

Standing before it, still glowing brightly from its phase leap, was Fury's Helicarrier, now operating under Rhodes Protocol. What this means is, it went from giant flying ship, to a massive bipedal form resembling that of the former hero War Machine.

It stood a head taller than the Celestial, and its ports were opening up to deploy its troops again. Before all this could be completed however, the Celestial was once again pierce by a transparent grow beam coming from behind. Doom was at play as well.

Numerous Overlord ships and Doombots descended upon the Celestial. On the other end, the Warbirds and SHIELD personnel were at the ready to put the Celestial down for good.

The Celestial sized up its numerous opponents, and immediately shot right off the ground. Blast into the sky, the Celestial took flight towards were the beacons located, and now probably, buried.

Undeterred both Doom and Fury's forces gave chase as the massive War Machine and a ridiculous amount of Overlords colored the sky with shots.

The War Machine was a persistent predator. With only one individual linked to the entire ship—Fury—there was no issue with coordination.

Firing the particle cannons on its shoulder, the repulsors on the War Machine launched it even faster after the Celestial.

Three blue beams cut through the air as one scrapped the Celestial right over its back, prompting it to project a few blasts backwards with prolonged engagement.

Flying right through the hits, whatever damage was done to the War Machine was quickly repaired; all thanks to nano-machines.

Still, the Celestial put more power into its as it dove down, trying to get to the beacon before more troubles came.

Doom had different plans. Having long since calculated the "Celestials" flight path in his head, he floated in adrift, waiting for his prey to come, before ensnaring it in mystical chains.

It didn't take long for the Celestial to break free from the bindings, but Doom's goal was accomplished by then. Parts of the Celestial were ripped off as the chains were broken, and Doom collected one piece of the Celestial that came falling near him.

Scanning the broken shard from the Celestial, Doom's eyes widened.

…

Shepard's team had left the Helicarrier the moment it engaged the Celestial. The idea was to get the beacon while the War Machine engaged the Celestial and deal with the situation.

Their dropship landed five minutes ago. They spent three just starring at the beacon while the War Machine brawled the Celestial in the background. Saren looked blankly at the gargantuan beacon standing before them.

"How are we supposed to get that out of here?"

"At least it isn't buried," stated Nihlus, looking up at the massive protruding beacon sticking out of from the ruined earth.

"I don't think I remember it being that big," Ashley added. Shepard shivered at statement; the blasted beacon was already giving him the jitters.

Kaiden focused his power and tried digging the beacon out from under the ground again but to no avail.

"It's like its rooted down to something." Kaiden declared.

"Well it—" A flash from the beacon interrupted whoever said that.

Ripping Kaiden from off the ground, and holding him up the air, the beacon shone furiously as it began doing something. Wasting no time, Shepard, pulled Kaiden out of the way from the beacon, and immediately regretted his decision.

He found himself the same position that Kaiden was in. And then, before anyone could do anything for Shepard, the beacon exploded, and forced itself down his mouth.

The group then starred at the convulsing Agent as he began glowing red, blue, and then green.

"Did he just eat the beacon?!" Nihlus groaned in horror. Kaiden simply brought his hand up to his mouth and touched it, thankful that it wasn't him.

…

A forceful elbow forced the War Machine backwards. By this point, the Rider had caught up the battle again, and slammed into the ankle of the Celestial, cracking it. Runes opened up in the sky as meteorites were summoned to bombard the Celestial.

Throwing a Shield up, it blocked the missiles coming at it from the Sorcerer Supreme, but was hit in the back by a dozen Overlord shots. Then the Hulk emerged, while also being flanked by Thor.

Blasting the Avengers' hard hitters away, a Quinjet fired a Uni-beam shot straight through its legs.

Bleeding black liquid, damaged, and overwhelmed, the Celestial drew force upon itself again. Or at least, it tried. Slowly but surely, it was getting slower, its power was getting weaker and…

In the distance, a massive flash came from where the beacon was and the resulting wave washed over all the combatants on the battlefield, without affecting most of them.

The Celestial, on the other hand, fell to its knees as it felt some part of itself fade away entirely. It tried to muster some kinetic energy but failed. The Celestial starred down at its hands as it tried to draw out power, but failed. It slowly began falling apart.

The Celestial was powerless.

Then instead of moving, or trying to muster up a defense, the Celestial just stayed still, as the light faded out from inside it. Its job was done. It succeeded.

A massive Vibranium rocket went into the Celestial's shoulder courtesy of the War Machine, and punched a hole through it. Seeing their enemy damaged, the Avengers pressed the advantage.

The Celestial fell back but caught itself before it could fall over. Seizing the advantage, the Avengers let loose. The Iron Lady became a glowing blue bullet once more and jumped right into, and through the lower abdominal region of the Celestial.

It didn't fall.

The Captain tossed her shield through the air with perfect accuracy, nailing the Celestial under the jaw, before the shield was launched through the back of its head when Mjolnir flew into it. Then three arrows flew into the cracks that made by the prior attack and exploded within the skull. The Celestial took another step back, clutching its head.

It didn't fall.

The Hulk leapt up on the back of the Celestial, smashing and ripping through the armor with out mercy.

It fell to its knees, black liquid dripping out of its cracked face. Still it made no attempt to fight back.

Chanting to himself, Conrad waved his hands wildly in the air and then with a brilliant flash of light…. Nothing happened. Until…

"Wait for it…"

The Celestial's stomach bent inwards as a spectral train rammed into it from out of nowhere.

Everyone stood still in silence for a second.

"Looks like he got… sooouuuullll traiiiiinnnneeeed!" Announced Conrad gleefully. Silence greeted him. He was undeterred; he had to try again.

"Looks that like that will give him indigestion!" He received no applause. All he earned was a face-palm from Stark.

"Hey Conrad," said Stark, while firing at the Celestial, blowing chunks of it off. "You know that thing you do, when your lips come together and sound comes out to make words?"

"You mean talking?"

"Yeah. Stop doing it."

Conrad frowned. No one liked his jokes.

A giant foot snapped the Sorcerer out of his melancholy as he noticed Giant Man attempting curb stomp the remaining chunks of the Celestial's face. Conrad decided to help by transforming the Giant Man's boot into a Chainsaw stiletto.

The Celestial's mangled face was stomped on a few more times before the head was completely sliced, crushed, and demolished.

Then a green blast ended it all. The Celestial began crumbling into dust as the glow faded from Doom's hand.

"It isn't a real Celestial," declared Doom.

"What the hell do you mean it's not a real Celestial?" Marion Stark asked, disbelievingly. The damn thing certainly throttled them like it was authentic, that's for sure. "Did you not see what it did to us? We barely beat it."

Doom scoffed at Stark's statement. Fools. What do they know about facing Celestials. He had fought, suffered, and prevailed against the Celestials more than anyone in the universe, and never once did a single team, without an overwhelming advantage, or device, of some sort take down a Celestial like this.

"Even before it was actually damaged, Doom knew. Celestials are comparable to the might of Galactus, but this one was brought low by a single team of Avengers, a half-wit who forgot his pants, and a single Helicarrier's resources. This is no Celestial, only a pale imitation," muttered Doom. "No Celestial would be killed like this, no Celestial would choose such a juvenile method of entrance, and no Celestial has been this limited in its application of power; this one only manipulated forces."

Stark threw her hands up into the air and began wandering towards the remains of the Celestial. "Great. Perfect. So now all we have to go on here is my destroyed colony, a fake dead Celestial with a broken mech-squid, and shield agent who apparently ate the beacon I dug up."

"But who could make a fake Celestial, and have it attack Eden Prime?" asked Captain America, face full of worry. "And why?"

"I didn't even get the insurance set up," groaned Stark, head in her hands.

Doom held up the part of the Celestial's shattered head. Though its face was cracked and shell was broken, he could still feel the power emanating from within. Whoever could make an artificial Celestial, even a pale imitation, and force it to fight in such a manner, was powerful beyond measure, and undoubtedly, mad.

Thanos was the first person that Doom could think to be able to achieve something such as this, but it didn't make sense: the mad Titan had recently been exiled to an alternate universe, and Doom would know if he had returned. Also, why Celestials? And fake ones at that?

He needed to investigate, and deal with this threat, to prove that none shall match Doom. For the first time since Reed Richards died, Victor Von Doom felt a spark of life come back into him.

Doom turned and warped away, leaving the Avengers stranded behind.

Stark scowled at the slowly disappearing Doom. She could finally understand why her grandfather hated this man so much.

"Dick," hissed Stark.

"Verily."Thor announced, finally landing beside his team.

...

"Alright that's enough of that, lets get the Agent out of here," Said Fury, looking towards the unmoving and still smoldering Shield agent. As the director approached Shepard, the agent suddenly began glowing green, red, and then blue again. The Director stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look at Ashley.

"Yeah, he does that, every now and then."

Fury grimaced and he began to massage his temples.

"On second thought, let's wait till the specialists get down here from the Helicarrier and properly extract him. It looks like someone just got an origin story here, and until we know what the beacon did to him, no one touch hi—goddamnit Conrad!"

Conrad immediately let go of Shepard's legs. Conrad was, in no way, trying to pry Shepard's pants off. SHIELD pants were badly designed anyway.

"I-I was just checking for a pulse!"

Fury couldn't tell if he was lying.

…

A few steps away, two Spectres were discussing how the after action report was going to sound.

"So Nihlus, what are we supposed to tell the Council," asked Saren.

"The Truth?"

"… Nihlus, if you can explain to the Council how a robotic death-squid of the Geth forces along with their godly overlord came down to Eden Prime, destroyed everything in a brawl with human forces, a flaming Thresher Maw being ridden on a skull, an army of robots, and forced a Shield agent to destroy Prothean beacon with his mind without Sparatus dismissing it as a rumor, I'll give you my rifle."

"Well, they can't ignore us both."

"You obviously don't know Sparatus."

"I—"

"They will listen to me!" was the growled out phrase that ended their discussion. The Ghost Rider stood before them, more fiery and furious than ever, despite bringing the Celestial low. "Your Council will believe me!"

Saren grimaced internally, hands fidgeting with his gun. "I am not certain about—"

"They will believe what I say! If they decide not to, I will feed them to my mount!"

The Thresher Maw gave that statement a joyous roar, and made slurping noises.

Nihlus looked to Saren again. "You think we still need to include the part with the inferno Thresher."

"Probably not. We can just show them instead," muttered Saren, dreading his upcoming meeting with his superiors. "They aren't going to like this."

Nihlus starred at the Thresher Maw. "We're probably going need to worry about getting a big enough ship for that first."

* * *

><p><strong>Important Ramblings<strong>: The Universes of Marvel, comic issues, different individuals, and even writing/description quality will vary with the situation like in different comic issues, so don't be surprised to see one chapter going "Boobs! BUT THE BOOBS ARE ACTUALLY GUNS! EXPLOSIONS! NOW EVERYONE FIGHTS!" in the way the first two chapters after the prologue couldn't give a care about the plot, and then another going all cloak and dagger. Then again, this all depends on how sober I am while I write this, and what kind of compulsive thoughts Mr. Brain forces upon me. Oh, and missing details here will be explained later.

* * *

><p>Looking across at the ruined landscape, stood a group people, all dressed in suits.<p>

This was Eden Prime, and it was their job to make it so again.

"All yours guys," declared the Iron Lady without a second glance given.

"Thanks a lot."

It was their job to fix Eden Prime. They hated their jobs.

**_Damage Control's after issue mayhem coming soon..._**


End file.
